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diff --git a/24898.txt b/24898.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9517c67 --- /dev/null +++ b/24898.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31195 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Elsmere, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Robert Elsmere + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: March 23, 2008 [EBook #24898] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT ELSMERE *** + + + + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + + + + +ROBERT ELSMERE + +BY + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +AUTHOR OF 'MISS BRETHERTON' + + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO. +AND NEW YORK +1888 + +All rights reserved + +Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. + + + * * * * * + + +Dedicated to the Memory + +OF + +MY TWO FRIENDS, + +SEPARATED, IN MY THOUGHT OF THEM, BY MUCH DIVERSITY OF +CIRCUMSTANCE AND OPINION; +LINKED, IN MY FAITH ABOUT THEM, TO EACH OTHER, +AND TO ALL THE SHINING ONES OF THE PAST, +BY THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE +SERVICE OF MAN: + +THOMAS HILL GREEN +(LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD), +_Died 26th March 1882_; + +AND + +LAURA OCTAVIA MARY LYTTELTON, +_Died Easter Eve 1886_. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +BOOK I + WESTMORELAND 1 + +BOOK II + SURREY 149 + +BOOK III + THE SQUIRE 251 + +BOOK IV + CRISIS 333 + +BOOK V + ROSE 387 + +BOOK VI + NEW OPENINGS 461 + +BOOK VII + GAIN AND LOSS 549 + + + * * * * * +NOTE + + +The quotations given in the present book on pp. 58, 330, and 536, are +either literally or substantially taken from a volume of Lay Sermons, +called _The Witness of God_, by the late Professor T. H. Green. + + * * * * * + + + + +BOOK I + +WESTMORELAND + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was a brilliant afternoon towards the end of May. The spring had been +unusually cold and late, and it was evident from the general aspect of +the lonely Westmoreland valley of Long Whindale that warmth and sunshine +had only just penetrated to its bare green recesses, where the few +scattered trees were fast rushing into their full summer dress, while at +their feet, and along the bank of the stream, the flowers of March and +April still lingered, as though they found it impossible to believe that +their rough brother, the east wind, had at last deserted them. The +narrow road, which was the only link between the farmhouses sheltered by +the crags at the head of the valley and those far-away regions of town +and civilisation suggested by the smoke wreaths of Whinborough on the +southern horizon, was lined with masses of the white heckberry or +bird-cherry, and ran, an arrowy line of white, through the greenness of +the sloping pastures. The sides of some of the little becks running down +into the main river and many of the plantations round the farms were gay +with the same tree, so that the farmhouses, gray-roofed and gray-walled, +standing in the hollows of the fells, seemed here and there to have been +robbed of all their natural austerity of aspect, and to be masquerading +in a dainty garb of white and green imposed upon them by the caprice of +the spring. + +During the greater part of its course the valley of Long Whindale is +tame and featureless. The hills at the lower part are low and rounded, +and the sheep and cattle pasture over slopes unbroken either by wood or +rock. The fields are bare and close shaven by the flocks which feed on +them; the walls run either perpendicularly in many places up the fells +or horizontally along them, so that, save for the wooded course of the +tumbling river and the bush-grown hedges of the road, the whole valley +looks like a green map divided by regular lines of grayish black. But as +the walker penetrates farther, beyond a certain bend which the stream +makes half way from the head of the dale, the hills grow steeper, the +breadth between them contracts, the enclosure lines are broken and +deflected by rocks and patches of plantation, and the few farms stand +more boldly and conspicuously forward, each on its spur of land, +looking up to or away from the great masses of frowning crag which close +in the head of the valley, and which from the moment they come into +sight give it dignity and a wild beauty. + +On one of these solitary houses, the afternoon sun, about to descend +before very long behind the hills dividing Long Whindale from Shanmoor, +was still lingering on this May afternoon we are describing, bringing +out the whitewashed porch and the broad bands of white edging the +windows into relief against the gray stone of the main fabric, the gray +roof overhanging it, and the group of sycamores and Scotch firs which +protected it from the cold east and north. The western light struck full +on a copper beech, which made a welcome patch of warm colour in front of +a long gray line of outhouses standing level with the house, and touched +the heckberry blossom which marked the upward course of the little lane +connecting the old farm with the road; above it rose the green fell, +broken here and there by jutting crags, and below it the ground sank +rapidly through a piece of young hazel plantation, at this present +moment a sheet of bluebells, towards the level of the river. There was a +dainty and yet sober brightness about the whole picture. Summer in the +North is for Nature a time of expansion and of joy as it is elsewhere, +but there is none of that opulence, that sudden splendour and +superabundance, which mark it in the South. In these bare green valleys +there is a sort of delicate austerity even in the summer; the memory of +winter seems to be still lingering about these wind-swept fells, about +the farmhouses, with their rough serviceable walls, of the same stone as +the crags behind them, and the ravines, in which the shrunken becks +trickle musically down through the _debris_ of innumerable Decembers. +The country is blithe, but soberly blithe. Nature shows herself +delightful to man, but there is nothing absorbing or intoxicating about +her. Man is still well able to defend himself against her, to live his +own independent life of labour and of will, and to develop the tenacity +of hidden feeling, that slowly growing intensity of purpose, which is so +often wiled out of him by the spells of the South. + +The distant aspect of Burwood Farm differed in nothing from that of the +few other farmhouses which dotted the fells or clustered beside the +river between it and the rocky end of the valley. But as one came +nearer, certain signs of difference became visible. The garden, instead +of being the old-fashioned medley of phloxes, lavender bushes, monthly +roses, gooseberry trees, herbs, and pampas grass, with which the +farmers' wives of Long Whindale loved to fill their little front +enclosures, was trimly laid down in turf dotted with neat flower-beds, +full at the moment we are writing of with orderly patches of scarlet and +purple anemones, wallflowers, and pansies. At the side of the house a +new bow window, modest enough in dimensions and make, had been thrown +out on to another close-shaven piece of lawn, and by its suggestion of +a distant sophisticated order of things disturbed the homely impression +left by the untouched ivy-grown walls, the unpretending porch, and wide +slate window-sills of the front. And evidently the line of sheds +standing level with the dwelling-house no longer sheltered the animals, +the carts, or the tools which make the small capital of a Westmoreland +farmer. The windows in them were new, the doors fresh painted and +closely shut; curtains of some soft outlandish make showed themselves in +what had once been a stable, and the turf stretched smoothly up to a +narrow gravelled path in front of them, unbroken by a single footmark. +No, evidently the old farm, for such it undoubtedly was, had been but +lately, or comparatively lately, transformed to new and softer uses; +that rough patriarchal life of which it had once been a symbol and +centre no longer bustled and clattered through it. It had become the +shelter of new ideals, the home of another and a milder race than once +possessed it. + +In a stranger coming upon the house for the first time, on this +particular evening, the sense of a changing social order and a vanishing +past produced by the slight but significant modifications it had +undergone, would have been greatly quickened by certain sounds which +were streaming out on to the evening air from one of the divisions of +that long one-storied addition to the main dwelling we have already +described. Some indefatigable musician inside was practising the violin +with surprising energy and vigour, and within the little garden the +distant murmur of the river and the gentle breathing of the west wind +round the fell were entirely conquered and banished by these triumphant +shakes and turns, or by the flourishes and the broad _cantabile_ +passages of one of Spohr's Andantes. For a while, as the sun sank lower +and lower towards the Shanmoor hills, the hidden artist had it all his, +or her, own way; the valley and its green spaces seemed to be possessed +by this stream of eddying sound, and no other sign of life broke the +gray quiet of the house. But at last, just as the golden ball touched +the summit of the craggy fell, which makes the western boundary of the +dale at its higher end, the house door opened, and a young girl, shawled +and holding some soft burden in her arms, appeared on the threshold, and +stood there for a moment, as though trying the quality of the air +outside. Her pause of inspection seemed to satisfy her, for she moved +forward, leaving the door open behind her, and, stepping across the +lawn, settled herself in a wicker chair under an apple-tree, which had +only just shed its blossoms on the turf below. She had hardly done so +when one of the distant doors opening on the gravel path flew open, and +another maiden, a slim creature garbed in aesthetic blue, a mass of +reddish brown hair flying back from her face, also stepped out into the +garden. + +'Agnes!' cried the new-comer, who had the strenuous and dishevelled air +natural to one just emerged from a long violin practice. 'Has Catherine +come back yet?' + +'Not that I know of. Do come here and look at pussie; did you ever see +anything so comfortable?' + +'You and she look about equally lazy. What have you been doing all the +afternoon?' + +'We look what we are, my dear. Doing? Why, I have been attending to my +domestic duties, arranging the flowers, mending my pink dress for +to-morrow night, and helping to keep mamma in good spirits; she is +depressed because she has been finding Elizabeth out in some waste or +other, and I have been preaching to her to make Elizabeth uncomfortable +if she likes, but not to worrit herself. And after all, pussie and I +have come out for a rest. We've earned it, haven't we, Chattie? And, as +for you, Miss Artistic, I should like to know what you've been doing for +the good of your kind since dinner. I suppose you had tea at the +vicarage?' + +The speaker lifted inquiring eyes to her sister as she spoke, her cheek +plunged in the warm fur of a splendid Persian cat, her whole look and +voice expressing the very highest degree of quiet, comfort, and +self-possession. Agnes Leyburn was not pretty; the lower part of the +face was a little heavy in outline and moulding; the teeth were not as +they should have been, and the nose was unsatisfactory. But the eyes +under their long lashes were shrewdness itself, and there was an +individuality in the voice, a cheery even-temperedness in look and tone, +which had a pleasing effect on the bystander. Her dress was neat and +dainty; every detail of it bespoke a young woman who respected both +herself and the fashion. + +Her sister, on the other hand, was guiltless of the smallest trace of +fashion. Her skirts were cut with the most engaging _naivete_, she was +much adorned with amber beads, and her red brown hair had been tortured +and frizzled to look as much like an aureole as possible. But, on the +other hand, she was a beauty, though at present you felt her a beauty in +disguise, a stage Cinderella as it were, in very becoming rags, waiting +for the godmother. + +'Yes, I had tea at the vicarage,' said this young person, throwing +herself on the grass in spite of a murmured protest from Agnes, who had +an inherent dislike of anything physically rash, 'and I had the greatest +difficulty to get away. Mrs. Thornburgh is in such a flutter about this +visit! One would think it was the Bishop and all his Canons, and +promotion depending on it, she has baked so many cakes and put out so +many dinner napkins! I don't envy the young man. She will have no wits +left at all to entertain him with. I actually wound up by administering +some sal-volatile to her.' + +'Well, and after the sal-volatile did you get anything coherent out of +her on the subject of the young man?' + +'By degrees,' said the girl, her eyes twinkling; 'if one can only +remember the thread between whiles one gets at the facts somehow. In +between the death of Mr. Elsmere's father and his going to college, we +had, let me see,--the spare room curtains, the making of them and the +cleaning of them, Sarah's idiocy in sticking to her black sheep of a +young man, the price of tea when she married, Mr. Thornburgh's singular +preference of boiled mutton to roast, the poems she had written to her +when she was eighteen, and I can't tell you what else besides. But I +held fast, and every now and then I brought her up to the point again, +gently, but firmly, and now I think I know all I want to know about the +interesting stranger.' + +'My ideas about him are not many,' said Agnes, rubbing her cheek gently +up and down the purring cat, 'and there doesn't seem to be much order in +them. He is very accomplished--a teetotaller--he has been to the Holy +Land, and his hair has been cut close after a fever. It sounds odd, but +I am not curious. I can very well wait till to-morrow evening.' + +'Oh, well, as to ideas about a person, one doesn't get that sort of +thing from Mrs. Thornburgh. But I know how old he is, where he went to +college, where his mother lives, a certain number of his mother's +peculiarities, which seem to be Irish and curious, where his living is, +how much it is worth, likewise the colour of his eyes, as near as Mrs. +Thornburgh can get.' + +'What a start you have been getting!' said Agnes lazily. 'But what is it +makes the poor old thing so excited?' + +Rose sat up and began to fling the fir cones lying about her at a +distant mark with an energy worthy of her physical perfections and the +aesthetic freedom of her attire. + +'Because, my dear, Mrs. Thornburgh at the present moment is always +seeing herself as the conspirator sitting match in hand before a mine. +Mr. Elsmere is the match--we are the mine!' + +Agnes looked at her sister, and they both laughed, the bright rippling +laugh of young women perfectly aware of their own value, and in no hurry +to force an estimate of it on the male world. + +'Well,' said Rose deliberately, her delicate cheek flushed with her +gymnastics, her eyes sparkling, 'there is no saying. "Propinquity does +it"--as Mrs. Thornburgh is always reminding us.--But where _can_ +Catherine be? She went out directly after lunch.' + +'She has gone out to see that youth who hurt his back at the Tysons--at +least I heard her talking to mamma about him, and she went out with a +basket that looked like beef-tea.' + +Rose frowned a little. + +'And I suppose I ought to have been to the school or to see Mrs. Robson, +instead of fiddling all the afternoon. I daresay I ought--only, +unfortunately, I like my fiddle, and I don't like stuffy cottages; and +as for the goody books, I read them so badly that the old women +themselves come down upon me.' + +'I seem to have been making the best of both worlds,' said Agnes +placidly. 'I haven't been doing anything I don't like, but I got hold +of that dress she brought home to make for little Emma Payne and nearly +finished the skirt, so that I feel as good as one when one has been +twice to church on a wet Sunday. Ah, there is Catherine. I heard the +gate.' + +As she spoke steps were heard approaching through the clump of trees +which sheltered the little entrance gate, and as Rose sprang to her feet +a tall figure in white and gray appeared against the background of the +sycamores, and came quickly towards the sisters. + +'Dears, I am so sorry; I am afraid you have been waiting for me. But +poor Mrs. Tyson wanted me so badly that I could not leave her. She had +no one else to help her or to be with her till that eldest girl of hers +came home from work.' + +'It doesn't matter,' said Rose, as Catherine put her arm round her +shoulder; 'mamma hasn't been fidgeting, and as for Agnes, she looks as +if she never wanted to move again.' + +Catherine's clear eyes, which at the moment seemed to be full of inward +light, kindled in them by some foregoing experience, rested kindly, but +only half consciously, on her younger sister, as Agnes softly nodded and +smiled to her. Evidently she was a good deal older than the other +two--she looked about six-and-twenty, a young and vigorous woman in the +prime of health and strength. The lines of the form were rather thin and +spare, but they were softened by the loose bodice and long full skirt of +her dress, and by the folds of a large white muslin handkerchief which +was crossed over her breast. The face, sheltered by the plain shady hat, +was also a little spoilt from the point of view of beauty by the +sharpness of the lines about the chin and mouth, and by a slight +prominence of the cheekbones, but the eyes, of a dark bluish gray, were +fine, the nose delicately cut, the brow smooth and beautiful, while the +complexion had caught the freshness and purity of Westmoreland air and +Westmoreland streams. About face and figure there was a delicate austere +charm, something which harmonised with the bare stretches and lonely +crags of the fells, something which seemed to make her a true daughter +of the mountains, partaker at once of their gentleness and their +severity. _She_ was in her place here, beside the homely Westmoreland +house and under the shelter of the fells. When you first saw the other +sisters you wondered what strange chance had brought them into that +remote sparely-peopled valley; they were plainly exiles, and conscious +exiles, from the movement and exhilarations of a fuller social life. But +Catherine impressed you as only a refined variety of the local type; you +could have found many like her, in a sense, among the sweet-faced +serious women of the neighbouring farms. + +Now, as she and Rose stood together, her hand still resting lightly on +the other's shoulder, a question from Agnes banished the faint smile on +her lips, and left only the look of inward illumination, the expression +of one who had just passed, as it were, through a strenuous and heroic +moment of life, and was still living in the exaltation of memory. + +'So the poor fellow is worse?' + +'Yes. Doctor Baker, whom they have got to-day, says the spine is +hopelessly injured. He may live on paralysed for a few months or longer, +but there is no hope of cure.' + +Both girls uttered a shocked exclamation. 'That fine strong young man!' +said Rose under her breath. 'Does he know?' + +'Yes; when I got there the doctor had just gone, and Mrs. Tyson, who was +quite unprepared for anything so dreadful, seemed to have almost lost +her wits, poor thing! I found her in the front kitchen with her apron +over her head, rocking to and fro, and poor Arthur in the inner +room--all alone--waiting in suspense.' + +'And who told him? He has been so hopeful.' + +'I did,' said Catherine gently; 'they made me. He _would_ know, and she +couldn't--she ran out of the room. I never saw anything so pitiful.' + +'Oh, Catherine!' exclaimed Rose's moved voice, while Agnes got up, and +Chattie jumped softly down from her lap, unheeded. + +'How did he bear it?' + +'Don't ask me,' said Catherine, while the quiet tears filled her eyes +and her voice broke, as the hidden feeling would have its way. 'It was +terrible! I don't know how we got through that half-hour--his mother and +I. It was like wrestling with some one in agony. At last he was +exhausted--he let me say the Lord's Prayer; I think it soothed him, but +one couldn't tell. He seemed half asleep when I left. Oh!' she cried, +laying her hand in a close grasp on Rose's arm, 'if you had seen his +eyes, and his poor hands--there was such despair in them! They say, +though he was so young, he was thinking of getting married; and he was +so steady, such a good son!' + +A silence fell upon the three. Catherine stood looking out across the +valley towards the sunset. Now that the demand upon her for calmness and +fortitude was removed, and that the religious exaltation in which she +had gone through the last three hours was becoming less intense, the +pure human pity of the scene she had just witnessed seemed to be gaining +upon her. Her lip trembled, and two or three tears silently overflowed. +Rose turned and gently kissed her cheek, and Agnes touched her hand +caressingly. She smiled at them, for it was not in her nature to let any +sign of love pass unheeded, and in a few more seconds she had mastered +herself. + +'Dears, we must go in. Is mother in her room? Oh, Rose! in that thin +dress on the grass; I oughtn't to have kept you out. It is quite cold by +now.' + +And she hurried them in, leaving them to superintend the preparations +for supper downstairs while she ran up to her mother. + +A quarter of an hour afterwards they were all gathered round the +supper-table, the windows open to the garden and the May twilight. At +Catherine's right hand sat Mrs. Leyburn, a tall delicate-looking woman, +wrapped in a white shawl, about whom there were only three things to be +noticed--an amiable temper, a sufficient amount of weak health to excuse +her all the more tiresome duties of life, and an incorrigible tendency +to sing the praises of her daughters at all times and to all people. The +daughters winced under it: Catherine, because it was a positive pain to +her to hear herself brought forward and talked about; the others, +because youth infinitely prefers to make its own points in its own way. +Nothing, however, could mend this defect of Mrs. Leyburn's. Catherine's +strength of will could keep it in check sometimes, but in general it had +to be borne with. A sharp word would have silenced the mother's +well-meant chatter at any time--for she was a fragile, nervous woman, +entirely dependent on her surroundings--but none of them were capable of +it, and their mere refractoriness counted for nothing. + +The dining-room in which they were gathered had a good deal of homely +dignity, and was to the Leyburns full of associations. The oak settle +near the fire, the oak sideboard running along one side of the room, the +black oak table with carved legs at which they sat, were genuine pieces +of old Westmoreland work, which had belonged to their grandfather. The +heavy carpet covering the stone floor of what twenty years before had +been the kitchen of the farmhouse was a survival from a south-country +home, which had sheltered their lives for eight happy years. Over the +mantelpiece hung the portrait of the girls' father, a long serious face, +not unlike Wordsworth's face in outline, and bearing a strong +resemblance to Catherine; a line of silhouettes adorned the mantelpiece; +on the walls were prints of Winchester and Worcester Cathedrals, +photographs of Greece, and two old-fashioned engravings of Dante and +Milton; while a bookcase, filled apparently with the father's college +books and college prizes and the favourite authors--mostly poets, +philosophers, and theologians--of his later years, gave a final touch of +habitableness to the room. The little meal and its appointments--the +eggs, the home-made bread and preserves, the tempting butter and +old-fashioned silver gleaming among the flowers which Rose arranged with +fanciful skill in Japanese pots of her own providing--suggested the same +family qualities as the room. Frugality, a dainty personal self-respect, +a family consciousness, tenacious of its memories and tenderly careful +of all the little material objects which were to it the symbols of those +memories--clearly all these elements entered into the Leyburn tradition. + +And of this tradition, with its implied assertions and denials, clearly +Catherine Leyburn, the elder sister, was, of all the persons gathered in +this little room, the most pronounced embodiment. She sat at the head +of the table, the little basket of her own and her mother's keys beside +her. Her dress was a soft black brocade, with lace collar and cuff, +which had once belonged to an aunt of her mother's. It was too old for +her both in fashion and material, but it gave her a gentle, almost +matronly dignity, which became her. Her long thin hands, full of +character and delicacy, moved nimbly among the cups; all her ways were +quiet and yet decided. It was evident that among this little party she, +and not the plaintive mother, was really in authority. To-night, +however, her looks were specially soft. The scene she had gone through +in the afternoon had left her pale, with traces of patient fatigue round +the eyes and mouth, but all her emotion was gone, and she was devoting +herself to the others, responding with quick interest and ready smiles +to all they had to say, and contributing the little experiences of her +own day in return. + +Rose sat on her left hand in yet another gown of strange tint and +archaic outline. Rose's gowns were legion. They were manufactured by a +farmer's daughter across the valley, under her strict and precise +supervision. She was accustomed, as she boldly avowed, to shut herself +up at the beginning of each season of the year for two days' meditation +on the subject. And now, thanks to the spring warmth, she was entering +at last with infinite zest on the results of her April vigils. + +Catherine had surveyed her as she entered the room with a smile, but a +smile not altogether to Rose's taste. + +'What, another, Roeschen?' she had said, with the slightest lifting of +the eyebrows. 'You never confided that to me. Did you think I was +unworthy of anything so artistic?' + +'Not at all,' said Rose calmly, seating herself. 'I thought you were +better employed.' + +But a flush flew over her transparent cheek, and she presently threw an +irritated look at Agnes, who had been looking from her to Catherine with +amused eyes. + +'I met Mr. Thornburgh and Mr. Elsmere driving from the station,' +Catherine announced presently; 'at least there was a gentleman in a +clerical wideawake, with a portmanteau behind, so I imagine it must have +been he.' + +'Did he look promising?' inquired Agnes. + +'I don't think I noticed,' said Catherine simply, but with a momentary +change of expression. The sisters, remembering how she had come in upon +them with that look of one 'lifted up,' understood why she had not +noticed, and refrained from further questions. + +'Well, it is to be hoped the young man is recovered enough to stand Long +Whindale festivities,' said Rose. 'Mrs. Thornburgh means to let them +loose on his devoted head to-morrow night.' + +'Who are coming?' asked Mrs. Leyburn eagerly. The occasional tea parties +of the neighbourhood were an unfailing excitement to her, simply +because, by dint of the small adornings, natural to the occasion, they +showed her daughters to her under slightly new aspects. To see +Catherine, who never took any thought for her appearance, forced to +submit to a white dress, a line of pearls round the shapely throat, a +flower in the brown hair, put there by Rose's imperious fingers; to sit +in a corner well out of draughts, watching the effect of Rose's +half-fledged beauty, and drinking in the compliments of the +neighbourhood on Rose's playing or Agnes's conversation, or Catherine's +practical ability--these were Mrs. Leyburn's passions, and a tea party +always gratified them to the full. + +'Mamma asks as if really she wanted an answer,' remarked Agnes drily. +'Dear mother, can't you by now make up a tea party at the Thornburghs +out of your head?' + +'The Seatons?' inquired Mrs. Leyburn. + +'_Mrs._ Seaton and Miss Barks,' replied Rose. 'The rector won't come. +And I needn't say that, having moved heaven and earth to get Mrs. +Seaton, Mrs. Thornburgh is now miserable because she has got her. Her +ambition is gratified, but she knows that she has spoilt the party. +Well, then, Mr. Mayhew, of course, his son, _and_ his flute.' + +'You to play his accompaniments?' put in Agnes slily. Rose's lip curled. + +'Not if Miss Barks knows it,' she said emphatically, 'nor if I know it. +The Bakers, of course, ourselves, and the unknown.' + +'Dr. Baker is always pleasant,' said Mrs. Leyburn, leaning back and +drawing her white shawl languidly round her. 'He told me the other day, +Catherine, that if it weren't for you he should have to retire. He +regards you as his junior partner. "Marvellous nursing gift your eldest +daughter has, Mrs. Leyburn," he said to me the other day. A most +agreeable man.' + +'I wonder if I shall be able to get any candid opinions out of Mr. +Elsmere the day after to-morrow?' said Rose, musing. 'It is difficult to +avoid having an opinion of some sort about Mrs. Seaton.' + +'Oxford dons don't gossip and are never candid,' remarked Agnes +severely. + +'Then Oxford dons must be very dull,' cried Rose. 'However,' and her +countenance brightened, 'if he stays here four weeks we can teach him.' + +Catherine, meanwhile, sat watching the two girls with a soft elder +sister's indulgence. Was it in connection with their bright attractive +looks that the thought flitted through her head, 'I wonder what the +young man will be like?' + +'Oh, by the way,' said Rose presently, 'I had nearly forgotten Mrs. +Thornburgh's two messages. I informed her, Agnes, that you had given up +water-colour and meant to try oils, and she told me to implore you not +to, because "water-colour is so _much_ more lady-like than oils." And as +for you, Catherine, she sent you a most special message. I was to tell +you that she just _loved_ the way you had taken to plaiting your hair +lately--that it was exactly like the picture of Jeanie Deans she has in +the drawing-room, and that she would never forgive you if you didn't +plait it so to-morrow night.' + +Catherine flushed faintly as she got up from the table. + +'Mrs. Thornburgh has eagle-eyes,' she said, moving away to give her arm +to her mother, who looked fondly at her, making some remark in praise of +Mrs. Thornburgh's taste. + +'Rose!' cried Agnes indignantly, when the other two had disappeared, +'you and Mrs. Thornburgh have not the sense you were born with. What on +earth did you say that to Catherine for?' + +Rose stared; then her face fell a little. + +'I suppose it was foolish,' she admitted. Then she leant her head on one +hand and drew meditative patterns on the table-cloth with the other. +'You know, Agnes,' she said presently, looking up, 'there are drawbacks +to having a St. Elizabeth for a sister.' + +Agnes discreetly made no reply, and Rose was left alone. She sat +dreaming a few minutes, the corners of the red mouth drooping. Then she +sprang up with a long sigh. 'A little life!' she said half-aloud, 'a +little _wickedness_!' and she shook her curly head defiantly. + +A few minutes later, in the little drawing-room on the other side of the +hall, Catherine and Rose stood together by the open window. For the +first time in a lingering spring, the air was soft and balmy; a tender +grayness lay over the valley; it was not night, though above the clear +outlines of the fell the stars were just twinkling in the pale blue. Far +away under the crag on the farther side of High Fell a light was +shining. As Catherine's eyes caught it there was a quick response in the +fine Madonna-like face. + +'Any news for me from the Backhouses this afternoon?' she asked Rose. + +'No, I heard of none. How is she?' + +'Dying,' said Catherine simply, and stood a moment looking out. Rose did +not interrupt her. She knew that the house from which the light was +shining sheltered a tragedy; she guessed with the vagueness of nineteen +that it was a tragedy of passion and sin; but Catherine had not been +communicative on the subject, and Rose had for some time past set up a +dumb resistance to her sister's most characteristic ways of life and +thought, which prevented her now from asking questions. She wished +nervously to give Catherine's extraordinary moral strength no greater +advantage over her than she could help. + +Presently, however, Catherine threw her arm round her with a tender +protectingness. + +'What did you do with yourself all the afternoon, Roeschen?' + +'I practised for two hours,' said the girl shortly, 'and two hours this +morning. My Spohr is nearly perfect.' + +'And you didn't look into the school?' asked Catherine, hesitating; 'I +know Miss Merry expected you.' + +'No, I didn't. When one can play the violin and can't teach, any more +than a cockatoo, what's the good of wasting one's time in teaching?' + +Catherine did not reply. A minute after Mrs. Leyburn called her, and she +went to sit on a stool at her mother's feet, her hands resting on the +elder woman's lap, the whole attitude of the tall active figure one of +beautiful and childlike abandonment. Mrs. Leyburn wanted to confide in +her about a new cap, and Catherine took up the subject with a zest which +kept her mother happy till bedtime. + +'Why couldn't she take as much interest in my Spohr?' thought Rose. + +Late that night, long after she had performed all a maid's offices for +her mother, Catherine Leyburn was busy in her own room arranging a large +cupboard containing medicines and ordinary medical necessaries, a +storehouse whence all the simpler emergencies of their end of the valley +were supplied. She had put on a white flannel dressing-gown and moved +noiselessly about in it, the very embodiment of order, of purity, of +quiet energy. The little white-curtained room was bareness and neatness +itself. There were a few book-shelves along the walls, holding the books +which her father had given her. Over the bed were two enlarged portraits +of her parents, and a line of queer little faded monstrosities, +representing Rose and Agnes in different stages of childhood. On the +table beside the bed was a pile of well-worn books--Keble, Jeremy +Taylor, the Bible--connected in the mind of the mistress of the room +with the intensest moments of the spiritual life. There was a strip of +carpet by the bed, a plain chair or two, a large press; otherwise no +furniture that was not absolutely necessary, and no ornaments. And yet, +for all its emptiness, the little room in its order and spotlessness had +the look and spell of a sanctuary. + +When her task was finished Catherine came forward to the infinitesimal +dressing-table, and stood a moment before the common cottage +looking-glass upon it. The candle behind her showed her the outlines of +her head and face in shadow against the white ceiling. Her soft brown +hair was plaited high above the broad white brow, giving to it an added +stateliness, while it left unmasked the pure lines of the neck. Mrs. +Thornburgh and her mother were quite right. Simple as the new +arrangement was, it could hardly have been more effective. + +But the looking-glass got no smile in return for its information. +Catherine Leyburn was young; she was alone; she was being very plainly +told that, taken as a whole, she was, or might be at any moment, a +beautiful woman. And all her answer was a frown and a quick movement +away from the glass. Putting up her hands she began to undo the plaits +with haste, almost with impatience; she smoothed the whole mass then set +free into the severest order, plaited it closely together, and then, +putting out her light, threw herself on her knees beside the window, +which was partly open to the starlight and the mountains. The voice of +the river far away, wafted from the mist-covered depths of the valley, +and the faint rustling of the trees just outside, were for long after +the only sounds which broke the silence. + +When Catherine appeared at breakfast next morning her hair was plainly +gathered into a close knot behind, which had been her way or dressing it +since she was thirteen. Agnes threw a quick look at Rose; Mrs. Leyburn, +as soon as she had made out through her spectacles what was the matter, +broke into warm expostulations. + +'It is more comfortable, dear mother, and takes much less time,' said +Catherine, reddening. + +'Poor Mrs. Thornburgh!' remarked Agnes drily. + +'Oh, Rose will make up!' said Catherine, glancing, not without a spark +of mischief in her gray eyes, at Rose's tortured locks; 'and mamma's new +cap, which will be superb!' + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +About four o'clock on the afternoon of the day which was to be marked in +the annals of Long Whindale as that of Mrs. Thornburgh's 'high tea,' +that lady was seated in the vicarage garden, her spectacles on her nose, +a large _couvre-pied_ over her knees, and the Whinborough newspaper on +her lap. The neighbourhood of this last enabled her to make an +intermittent pretence of reading; but in reality the energies of her +housewifely mind were taken up with quite other things. The vicar's wife +was plunged in a housekeeping experiment of absorbing interest. All her +_solid_ preparations for the evening were over, and in her own mind she +decided that with them there was no possible fault to be found. The +cook, Sarah, had gone about her work in a spirit at once lavish and +fastidious, breathed into her by her mistress. No better tongue, no +plumper chickens, than those which would grace her board to-night were +to be found, so Mrs. Thornburgh was persuaded, in the district. And so +with everything else of a substantial kind. On this head the hostess +felt no anxieties. + +But a 'tea' in the north country depends for distinction, not on its +solids or its savouries, but on its sweets. A rural hostess earns her +reputation, not by a discriminating eye for butcher's-meat, but by her +inventiveness in cakes and custards. And it was just here, with regard +to this 'bubble reputation,' that the vicar's wife of Long Whindale was +particularly sensitive. Was she not expecting Mrs. Seaton, the wife of +the Rector of Whinborough--odious woman--to tea? Was it not incumbent on +her to do well, nay, to do brilliantly, in the eyes of this local +magnate? And how was it possible to do brilliantly in this matter with a +cook whose recipes were hopelessly old-fashioned, and who had an +exasperating belief in the sufficiency of buttered 'whigs' and home-made +marmalade for all requirements? + +Stung by these thoughts, Mrs. Thornburgh had gone prowling about the +neighbouring town of Whinborough till the shop window of a certain +newly-arrived confectioner had been revealed to her, stored with the +most airy and appetising trifles--of a make and colouring quite +metropolitan. She had flattened her gray curls against the window for +one deliberative moment; had then rushed in; and as soon as the +carrier's cart of Long Whindale, which she was now anxiously awaiting, +should have arrived, bearing with it the produce of that adventure, Mrs. +Thornburgh would be a proud woman, prepared to meet a legion of rectors' +wives without flinching. Not, indeed, in all respects a woman at peace +with herself and the world. In the country, where every household should +be self-contained, a certain discredit attaches in every well-regulated +mind to 'getting things in.' Mrs. Thornburgh was also nervous at the +thought of the bill. It would have to be met gradually out of the weekly +money. For 'William' was to know nothing of the matter, except so far as +a few magnificent generalities and the testimony of his own dazzled eyes +might inform him. But after all, in this as in everything else, one must +suffer to be distinguished. + +The carrier, however, lingered. And at last the drowsiness of the +afternoon overcame even those pleasing expectations we have described, +and Mrs. Thornburgh's newspaper dropped unheeded to her feet. The +vicarage, under the shade of which she was sitting, was a new gray stone +building with wooden gables, occupying the site of what had once been +the earlier vicarage house of Long Whindale, the primitive +dwelling-house of an incumbent, whose chapelry, after sundry +augmentations, amounted to just twenty-seven pounds a year. The modern +house, though it only contained sufficient accommodation for Mr. and +Mrs. Thornburgh, one guest, and two maids, would have seemed palatial to +those rustic clerics of the past from whose ministrations the lonely +valley had drawn its spiritual sustenance in times gone by. They, +indeed, had belonged to another race--a race sprung from the soil and +content to spend the whole of life in very close contact and very homely +intercourse with their mother earth. Mr. Thornburgh, who had come to the +valley only a few years before from a parish in one of the large +manufacturing towns, and who had no inherited interest in the Cumbrian +folk and their ways, had only a very faint idea, and that a distinctly +depreciatory one, of what these mythical predecessors of his, with their +strange social status and unbecoming occupations, might be like. But +there were one or two old men still lingering in the dale who could have +told him a great deal about them, whose memory went back to the days +when the relative social importance of the dale parsons was exactly +expressed by the characteristic Westmoreland saying: 'Ef ye'll nobbut +send us a gude schulemeaster, a verra' moderate parson 'ull dea!' and +whose slow minds, therefore, were filled with a strong inarticulate +sense of difference as they saw him pass along the road, and recalled +the incumbent of their childhood, dropping in for his 'crack' and his +glass of 'yale' at this or that farmhouse on any occasion of local +festivity, or driving his sheep to Whinborough market with his own hands +like any other peasant of the dale. + +Within the last twenty years, however, the few remaining survivors of +this primitive clerical order in the Westmoreland and Cumberland valleys +have dropped into their quiet unremembered graves, and new men of other +ways and other modes of speech reign in their stead. And as at Long +Whindale, so almost everywhere, the change has been emphasised by the +disappearance of the old parsonage houses with their stone floors, their +parlours lustrous with oak carving on chest or dresser, and their +encircling farm-buildings and meadows, in favour of an upgrowth of new +trim mansions designed to meet the needs, not of peasants, but of +gentlefolks. + +And naturally the churches too have shared in the process of +transformation. The ecclesiastical revival of the last half-century has +worked its will even in the remotest corners of the Cumbrian country, +and soon not a vestige of the homely worshipping-places of an earlier +day will remain. Across the road, in front of the Long Whindale +parsonage, for instance, rose a freshly built church, also peaked and +gabled, with a spire and two bells, and a painted east window, and +Heaven knows what novelties besides. The primitive whitewashed structure +it replaced had lasted long, and in the course of many generations time +had clothed its moss-grown walls, its slated porch, and tombstones worn +with rain in a certain beauty of congruity and association, linking it +with the purple distances of the fells, and the brawling river bending +round the gray enclosure. But finally, after a period of quiet and +gradual decay, the ruin of Long Whindale chapel had become a quick and +hurrying ruin that would not be arrested. When the rotten timbers of the +roof came dropping on the farmers' heads, and the oak benches beneath +offered gaps, the geography of which had to be carefully learnt by the +substantial persons who sat on them, lest they should be overtaken by +undignified disaster; when the rain poured in on the Communion Table and +the wind raged through innumerable mortarless chinks, even the +slowly-moving folk of the valley came to the conclusion that 'summat +'ull hev to be deun.' And by the help of the Bishop, and Queen Anne's +Bounty, and what not, aided by just as many half-crowns as the valley +found itself unable to defend against the encroachments of a new and +'moiderin' parson, 'summat' was done, whereof the results--namely, the +new church, vicarage, and schoolhouse--were now conspicuous. + +This radical change, however, had not been the work of Mr. Thornburgh +but of his predecessor, a much more pushing and enterprising man, whose +successful efforts to improve the church accommodation in Long Whindale +had moved such deep and lasting astonishment in the mind of a somewhat +lethargic bishop, that promotion had been readily found for him. Mr. +Thornburgh was neither capable of the sturdy begging which had raised +the church, nor was he likely on other lines to reach preferment. He and +his wife, who possessed much more salience of character than he, were +accepted in the dale as belonging to the established order of things. +Nobody wished them any harm, and the few people they had specially +befriended, naturally, thought well of them. + +But the old intimacy of relation which had once subsisted between the +clergyman of Long Whindale and his parishioners was wholly gone. They +had sunk in the scale; the parson had risen. The old statesmen or +peasant proprietors of the valley had for the most part succumbed to +various destructive influences, some social, some economical, added to a +certain amount of corrosion from within; and their place had been taken +by leaseholders, less drunken perhaps, and better educated, but also far +less shrewd and individual, and lacking in the rude dignity of their +predecessors. + +And as the land had lost, the church had gained. The place of the +dalesmen knew them no more, but the church and parsonage had got +themselves rebuilt, the parson had had his income raised, had let off +his glebe to a neighbouring farmer, kept two maids, and drank claret +when he drank anything. His flock were friendly enough, and paid their +commuted tithes without grumbling. But between them and a perfectly +well-meaning but rather dull man, who stood on his dignity and wore a +black coat all the week, there was no real community. Rejoice in it as +we may, in this final passage of Parson Primrose to social regions +beyond the ken of Farmer Flamborough, there are some elements of loss as +there are in all changes. + +Wheels on the road! Mrs. Thornburgh woke up with a start, and stumbling +over newspaper and _couvre-pied_, hurried across the lawn as fast as her +short squat figure would allow, gray curls and cap-strings flying behind +her. She heard a colloquy in the distance in broad Westmoreland dialect, +and as she turned the corner of the house she nearly ran into her tall +cook, Sarah, whose impassive and saturnine countenance bore traces of +unusual excitement. + +'Missis, there's naw cakes. They're all left behind on t' counter at +Randall's. Mr. Backhouse says as how he told old Jim to go fur 'em, and +he niver went, and Mr. Backhouse he niver found oot till he'd got past +t' bridge, and than it wur too late to go back.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh stood transfixed, something of her fresh pink colour +slowly deserting her face as she realised the enormity of the +catastrophe. And was it possible that there was the faintest twinkle of +grim satisfaction on the face of that elderly minx, Sarah? + +Mrs. Thornburgh, however, did not stay to explore the recesses of +Sarah's mind, but ran with little pattering, undignified steps across +the front garden and down the steps to where Mr. Backhouse the carrier +stood, bracing himself for self-defence. + +'Ya may weel fret, mum,' said Mr. Backhouse, interrupting the flood of +her reproaches, with the comparative _sang-froid_ of one who knew that, +after all, he was the only carrier on the road, and that the vicarage +was five miles from the necessaries of life; 'it's a bad job, and I's +not goin' to say it isn't. But ya jest look 'ere, mum, what's a man to +du wi' a daft thingamy like _that_, as caan't teak a plain order, and +spiles a poor man's business as caan't help hissel'?' + +And Mr. Backhouse pointed with withering scorn to a small, shrunken old +man, who sat dangling his legs on the shaft of the cart, and whose +countenance wore a singular expression of mingled meekness and +composure, as his partner flourished an indignant finger towards him. + +'Jim,' cried Mrs. Thornburgh reproachfully, 'I did think you would have +taken more pains about my order!' + +'Yis, mum,' said the old man placidly, 'ya might 'a' thowt it. I's reet +sorry, bit ya caan't help these things _sum_times--an' it's naw gud, a +hollerin' ower 'em like a mad bull. Aa tuke yur bit paper to Randall's +and aa laft it wi' 'em to mek up, an' than, aa, weel, aa went to a +frind, an' ee _may_ hev giv' me a glass of yale, aa doon't say ee +_dud_--but ee may, I ween't sweer. Hawsomiver, aa niver thowt naw mair +aboot it, nor mair did John, so _ee_ needn't taak--till we wur jest two +mile from 'ere. An' ee's a gon' on sence! My! an' a larroping the poor +beeast like onything!' + +Mrs. Thornburgh stood aghast at the calmness of this audacious recital. +As for John, he looked on surveying his brother's philosophical +demeanour at first with speechless wrath, and then with an inscrutable +mixture of expressions, in which, however, any one accustomed to his +weather-beaten countenance would have probably read a hidden admiration. + +'Weel, aa niver!' he exclaimed, when Jim's explanatory remarks had come +to an end, swinging himself up on to his seat and gathering up the +reins. 'Yur a boald 'un to tell the missus theer to hur feeace as how ya +wur 'tossicatit whan yur owt ta been duing yur larful business. Aa've +doon wi' yer. Aa aims to please ma coostomers, an' aa caan't abide sek +wark. Yur like an oald kneyfe, I can mak' nowt o' ya', nowder back nor +edge.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh wrung her fat short hands in despair, making little +incoherent laments and suggestions as she saw him about to depart, of +which John at last gathered the main purport to be that she wished him +to go back to Whinborough for her precious parcel. + +He shook his head compassionately over the preposterous state of mind +betrayed by such a demand, and with a fresh burst of abuse of his +brother, and an assurance to the vicar's wife that he meant to 'gie that +oald man nawtice when he got haum; he wasn't goan to hev his bisness +spiled for nowt by an oald ijiot wi' a hed as full o' yale as a +hayrick's full of mice,' he raised his whip and the clattering vehicle +moved forward; Jim meanwhile preserving through all his brother's wrath +and Mrs. Thornburgh's wailings the same mild and even countenance, the +meditative and friendly aspect of the philosopher letting the world go +'as e'en it will.' + +So Mrs. Thornburgh was left gasping, watching the progress of the +lumbering cart along the bit of road leading to the hamlet at the head +of the valley, with so limp and crestfallen an aspect that even the +gaunt and secretly jubilant Sarah was moved to pity. + +'Why, missis, we'll do very well. I'll hev some scones in t'oven in naw +time, an' theer's finger biscuits, an' wi' buttered toast an' sum o' t' +best jams, if they don't hev enuf to eat they ought to.' Then, dropping +her voice, she asked with a hurried change of tone, 'Did ye ask un' hoo +his daater is?' + +Mrs. Thornburgh started. Her pastoral conscience was smitten. She opened +the gate and waved violently after the cart. John pulled his horse up, +and with a few quick steps she brought herself within speaking, or +rather shouting, distance. + +'How's your daughter to-day, John?' + +The old man's face peering round the oilcloth hood of the cart was +darkened by a sudden cloud as he caught the words. His stern lips +closed. He muttered something inaudible to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped +up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left +staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his seat +on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from +benevolence into a preternatural solemnity. + +'He's sparin' ov 'is speach is John Backhouse,' said Sarah grimly, as +her mistress returned to her. 'Maybe ee's aboot reet. It's a bad +business an' ee'll not mend it wi' taakin'.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh, however, could not apply herself to the case of Mary +Backhouse. At any other moment it would have excited in her breast the +shuddering interest which, owing to certain peculiar attendant +circumstances, it awakened in every other woman in Long Whindale. But +her mind--such are the limitations of even clergymen's wives--was now +absorbed by her own misfortune. Her very cap-strings seemed to hang limp +with depression, as she followed Sarah dejectedly into the kitchen, and +gave what attention she could to those second-best arrangements so +depressing to the idealist temper. + +Poor soul! All the charm and glitter of her little social adventure was +gone. When she once more emerged upon the lawn, and languidly readjusted +her spectacles, she was weighed down by the thought that in two hours +Mrs. Seaton would be upon her. Nothing of this kind ever happened to +Mrs. Seaton. The universe obeyed her nod. No carrier conveying goods to +her august door ever got drunk or failed to deliver his consignment. The +thing was inconceivable. Mrs. Thornburgh was well aware of it. + +Should William be informed? Mrs. Thornburgh had a rooted belief in the +brutality of husbands in all domestic crises, and would have preferred +not to inform him. But she had also a dismal certainty that the secret +would burn a hole in her till it was confessed--bill and all. +Besides--frightful thought!--would they have to eat up all those +_meringues_ next day? + +Her reflections at last became so depressing that, with a natural +epicurean instinct, she tried violently to turn her mind away from them. +Luckily she was assisted by a sudden perception of the roof and chimneys +of Burwood, the Leyburns' house, peeping above the trees to the left. At +sight of them a smile overspread her plump and gently wrinkled face. She +fell gradually into a train of thought, as feminine as that in which she +had been just indulging, but infinitely more pleasing. + +For, with regard to the Leyburns, at this present moment Mrs. Thornburgh +felt herself in the great position of tutelary divinity or guardian +angel. At least if divinities and guardian angels do not concern +themselves with the questions to which Mrs. Thornburgh's mind was now +addressed, it would clearly have been the opinion of the vicar's wife +that they ought to do so. + +'Who else is there to look after these girls, I should like to know,' +Mrs. Thornburgh inquired of herself, 'if I don't do it? As if girls +married themselves! People may talk of their independence nowadays as +much as they like--it always has to be done for them, one way or +another. Mrs. Leyburn, poor lackadaisical thing! is no good whatever. No +more is Catherine. They both behave as if husbands tumbled into your +mouth for the asking. Catherine's too good for this world--but if she +doesn't do it, I must. Why, that girl Rose is a beauty--if they didn't +let her wear those ridiculous mustard-coloured things, and do her hair +fit to frighten the crows! Agnes too--so lady-like and well-mannered; +she'd do credit to any man. Well, we shall see, we shall see!' + +And Mrs. Thornburgh gently shook her gray curls from side to side, while +her eyes, fixed on the open spare room window, shone with meaning. + +'So eligible, too--private means, no encumbrances, and as good as gold.' + +She sat lost a moment in a pleasing dream. + +'Shall I bring oot the tea to you theer, mum?' called Sarah gruffly, +from the garden door. 'Master and Mr. Elsmere are just coomin' down t' +field by t' stepping-stones.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh signalled assent and the tea-table was brought. +Afternoon tea was by no means a regular institution at the vicarage of +Long Whindale, and Sarah never supplied it without signs of protest. But +when a guest was in the house Mrs. Thornburgh insisted upon it; her +obstinacy in the matter, like her dreams of cakes and confections, being +all part of her determination to move with the times, in spite of the +station to which Providence had assigned her. + +A minute afterwards the vicar, a thick-set gray-haired man of sixty, +accompanied by a tall younger man in clerical dress, emerged upon the +lawn. + +'Welcome sight!' cried Mr. Thornburgh; 'Robert and I have been coveting +that tea for the last hour. You guessed very well, Emma, to have it just +ready for us.' + +'Oh, that was Sarah. She saw you coming down to the stepping-stones,' +replied his wife, pleased, however, by any mark of appreciation from her +mankind, however small. 'Robert, I hope you haven't been walked off your +legs?' + +'What, in this air, cousin Emma? I could walk from sunrise to sundown. +Let no one call me an invalid any more. Henceforth I am a Hercules.' + +And he threw himself on the rug which Mrs. Thornburgh's motherly +providence had spread on the grass for him, with a smile and a look of +supreme physical contentment, which did indeed almost efface the signs +of recent illness in the ruddy boyish face. + +Mrs. Thornburgh studied him; her eye caught first of all by the stubble +of reddish hair which as he took off his hat stood up straight and stiff +all over his head with an odd wildness and aggressiveness. She +involuntarily thought, basing her inward comment on a complexity of +reasons--'Dear me, what a pity; it spoils his appearance!' + +'I apologise, I apologise, cousin Emma, once for all,' said the young +man, surprising her glance, and despairingly smoothing down his +recalcitrant locks. 'Let us hope that mountain air will quicken the pace +of it before it is necessary for me to present a dignified appearance at +Murewell.' + +He looked up at her with a merry flash in his gray eyes, and her old +face brightened visibly as she realised afresh that in spite of the +grotesqueness of his cropped hair, her guest was a most attractive +creature. Not that he could boast much in the way of regular good looks: +the mouth was large, the nose of no particular outline, and in general +the cutting of the face, though strong and characteristic, had a +bluntness and _naivete_ like a vigorous unfinished sketch. This +bluntness of line, however, was balanced by a great delicacy of +tint--the pink and white complexion of a girl, indeed--enhanced by the +bright reddish hair, and quick gray eyes. + +The figure was also a little out of drawing, so to speak; it was tall +and loosely-jointed. The general impression was one of agility and +power. But if you looked closer you saw that the shoulders were narrow, +the arms inordinately long, and the extremities too small for the +general height. Robert Elsmere's hand was the hand of a woman, and few +people ever exchanged a first greeting with its very tall owner without +a little shock of surprise. + +Mr. Thornburgh and his guest had visited a few houses in the course of +their walk, and the vicar plunged for a minute or two into some +conversation about local matters with his wife. But Mrs. Thornburgh, it +was soon evident, was giving him but a scatterbrained attention. Her +secret was working in her ample breast. Very soon she could contain it +no longer, and breaking in upon her husband's parish news, she tumbled +it all out pell-mell, with a mixture of discomfiture and defiance +infinitely diverting. She could not keep a secret, but she also could +not bear to give William an advantage. + +William certainly took his advantage. He did what his wife in her +irritation had precisely foreseen that he would do. He first stared, +then fell into a guffaw of laughter, and as soon as he had recovered +breath, into a series of unfeeling comments which drove Mrs. Thornburgh +to desperation. + +'If you will set your mind, my dear, on things we plain folks can do +perfectly well without'--et cetera, et cetera--the husband's point of +view can be imagined. Mrs. Thornburgh could have shaken her good man, +especially as there was nothing new to her in his remarks; she had known +to a T beforehand exactly what he would say. She took up her knitting in +a great hurry, the needles clicking angrily, her gray curls quivering +under the energy of her hands and arms, while she launched at her +husband various retorts as to his lack of consideration for her efforts +and her inconvenience, which were only very slightly modified by the +presence of a stranger. + +Robert Elsmere meanwhile lay on the grass, his face discreetly turned +away, an uncontrollable smile twitching the corners of his mouth. +Everything was fresh and piquant up here in this remote corner of the +north country, whether the mountain air or the wind-blown streams, or +the manners and customs of the inhabitants. His cousin's wife, in spite +of her ambitious conventionalities, was really the child of Nature to a +refreshing degree. One does not see these types, he said to himself, in +the cultivated monotony of Oxford or London. She was like a bit of a +bygone world--Miss Austen's or Miss Ferrier's--unearthed for his +amusement. He could not for the life of him help taking the scenes of +this remote rural existence, which was quite new to him, as though they +were the scenes of some comedy of manners. + +Presently, however, the vicar became aware that the passage of arms +between himself and his spouse was becoming just a little indecorous. +He got up with a 'Hem!' intended to put an end to it, and deposited his +cup. + +'Well, my dear, have it as you please. It all comes of your +determination to have Mrs. Seaton. Why couldn't you just ask the +Leyburns and let us enjoy ourselves?' + +With this final shaft he departed to see that Jane, the little maid whom +Sarah ordered about, had not, in cleaning the study for the evening's +festivities, put his last sermon into the waste-paper basket. His wife +looked after him with eyes that spoke unutterable things. + +'You would never think,' she said in an agitated voice to young Elsmere, +'that I had consulted Mr. Thornburgh as to every invitation, that he +entirely agreed with me that one _must_ be civil to Mrs. Seaton, +considering that she can make anybody's life a burden to them about here +that isn't; but it's no use.' + +And she fell back on her knitting with redoubled energy, her face full +of a half-tearful intensity of meaning. Robert Elsmere restrained a +strong inclination to laugh, and set himself instead to distract and +console her. He expressed sympathy with her difficulties, he talked to +her about her party, he got from her the names and histories of the +guests. How Miss Austenish it sounded: the managing rector's wife, her +still more managing old maid of a sister, the neighbouring clergyman who +played the flute, the local doctor, and a pretty daughter just +out--'Very pretty,' sighed Mrs. Thornburgh, who was now depressed all +round, 'but all flounces and frills and nothing to say'--and last of +all, those three sisters, the Leyburns, who seemed to be on a different +level, and whom he had heard mentioned so often since his arrival by +both husband and wife. + +'Tell me about the Miss Leyburns,' he said presently. 'You and cousin +William seem to have a great affection for them. Do they live near?' + +'Oh, quite close,' cried Mrs. Thornburgh, brightening at last, and like +a great general, leaving one scheme in ruins, only the more ardently to +take up another. 'There is the house,' and she pointed out Burwood among +its trees. Then with her eye eagerly fixed upon him, she fell into a +more or less incoherent account of her favourites. She laid on her +colours thickly, and Elsmere at once assumed extravagance. + +'A saint, a beauty, and a wit all to yourselves in these wilds!' he +said, laughing. 'What luck! But what on earth brought them here--a widow +and three daughters--from the south? It was an odd settlement surely, +though you have one of the loveliest valleys and the purest airs in +England.' + +'Oh, as to lovely valleys,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, sighing, 'I think it +very dull; I always have. When one has to depend for everything on a +carrier that gets drunk, too! Why, you know they belong here. They're +real Westmoreland people.' + +'What does that mean exactly?' + +'Oh, their grandfather was a farmer, just like one of the common +farmers about. Only his land was his own, and theirs isn't.' + +'He was one of the last of the statesmen,' interposed Mr. +Thornburgh--who, having rescued his sermon from Jane's tender mercies, +and put out his modest claret and sherry for the evening, had strolled +out again and found himself impelled as usual to put some precision into +his wife's statements--'one of the small freeholders who have almost +disappeared here as elsewhere. The story of the Leyburns always seems to +me typical of many things.' + +Robert looked inquiry, and the vicar, sitting down--having first picked +up his wife's ball of wool as a peace-offering, which was loftily +accepted--launched into a narrative which may be here somewhat +condensed. + +The Leyburns' grandfather, it appeared, had been a typical north-country +peasant--honest, with strong passions both of love and hate, thinking +nothing of knocking down his wife with the poker, and frugal in all +things save drink. Drink, however, was ultimately his ruin, as it was +the ruin of most of the Cumberland statesmen. 'The people about here,' +said the vicar, 'say he drank away an acre a year. He had some fifty +acres, and it took about thirty years to beggar him.' + +Meanwhile, this brutal, rollicking, strong-natured person had sons and +daughters--plenty of them. Most of them, even the daughters, were brutal +and rollicking too. Of one of the daughters, now dead, it was reported +that, having on one occasion discovered her father, then an old infirm +man, sitting calmly by the fire beside the prostrate form of his wife, +whom he had just felled with his crutch, she had taken off her wooden +shoe and given her father a clout on the head, which left his gray hair +streaming with blood; after which she had calmly put the horse into the +cart, and driven off to fetch the doctor to both her parents. But among +this grim and earthy crew there was one exception, a 'hop out of kin,' +of whom all the rest made sport. This was the second son, Richard, who +showed such a persistent tendency to 'book-larnin',' and such a +persistent idiocy in all matters pertaining to the land, that nothing +was left to the father at last but to send him with many oaths to the +grammar school at Whinborough. From the moment the boy got a footing in +the school he hardly cost his father another penny. He got a local +bursary which paid his school expenses, he never missed a remove or +failed to gain a prize, and finally won a close scholarship which +carried him triumphantly to Queen's College. + +His family watched his progress with a gaping, half-contemptuous +amazement, till he announced himself as safely installed at Oxford, +having borrowed from a Whinborough patron the modest sum necessary to +pay his college valuation--a sum which wild horses could not have +dragged out of his father, now sunk over head and ears in debt and +drink. + +From that moment they practically lost sight of him. He sent the class +list which contained his name among the Firsts to his father; in the +same way he communicated the news of his Fellowship at Queen's, his +ordination and his appointment to the headmastership of a south-country +grammar school. None of his communications were ever answered till, in +the very last year of his father's life, the eldest son, who had a +shrewder eye all round to the main chance than the rest, applied to +'Dick' for cash wherewith to meet some of the family necessities. The +money was promptly sent, together with photographs of Dick's wife and +children. These last were not taken much notice of. These Leyburns were +a hard, limited, incurious set, and they no longer regarded Dick as one +of themselves. + +'Then came the old man's death,' said Mr. Thornburgh. 'It happened the +year after I took the living. Richard Leyburn was sent for and came. I +never saw such a scene in my life as the funeral supper. It was kept up +in the old style. Three of Leyburn's sons were there: two of them +farmers like himself, one a clerk from Manchester, a daughter married to +a tradesman in Whinborough, a brother of the old man, who was under the +table before supper was half over, and so on. Richard Leyburn wrote to +ask me to come, and I went to support his cloth. But I was new to the +place,' said the vicar, flushing a little, 'and they belonged to a race +that had never been used to pay much respect to parsons. To see that man +among the rest! He was thin and dignified; he looked to me as if he had +all the learning imaginable, and he had large, absent-looking eyes, +which, as George, the eldest brother, said, gave you the impression of +some one that "had lost somethin' when he was nobbut a lad, and had gone +seekin' it iver sence." He was formidable to me; but between us we +couldn't keep the rest of the party in order, so when the orgie had gone +on a certain time, we left it and went out into the air. It was an +August night. I remember Leyburn threw back his head and drank it in. "I +haven't breathed this air for five-and-twenty years," he said. "I +thought I hated the place, and in spite of that drunken crew in there, +it draws me to it like a magnet. I feel, after all, that I have the +fells in my blood." He was a curious man, a refined-looking melancholy +creature, with a face that reminded you of Wordsworth, and cold donnish +ways, except to his children and the poor. I always thought his life had +disappointed him somehow.' + +'Yet one would think,' said Robert, opening his eyes, 'that he had made +a very considerable success of it!' + +'Well, I don't know how it was,' said the vicar, whose analysis of +character never went very far. 'Anyhow, next day he went peering about +the place and the mountains and the lands his father had lost. And +George, the eldest brother, who had inherited the farm, watched him +without a word, in the way these Westmoreland folk have, and at last +offered him what remained of the place for a fancy price. I told him it +was a preposterous sum, but he wouldn't bargain. "I shall bring my wife +and children here in the holidays," he said, "and the money will set +George up in California." So he paid through the nose, and got +possession of the old house, in which, I should think, he had passed +about as miserable a childhood as it was possible to pass. There's no +accounting for tastes.' + +'And then the next summer they all came down,' interrupted Mrs. +Thornburgh. She disliked a long story as she disliked being read aloud +to. 'Catherine was fifteen, not a bit like a child. You used to see her +everywhere with her father. To my mind he was always exciting her brain +too much, but he was a man you could not say a word to. I don't care +what William says about his being like Wordsworth; he just gave you the +blues to look at.' + +'It was so strange,' said the vicar meditatively, 'to see them in that +house. If you knew the things that used to go on there in old days--the +savages that lived there. And then to see those three delicately +brought-up children going in and out of the parlour where old Leyburn +used to sit smoking and drinking; and Dick Leyburn walking about in a +white tie, and the same men touching their hats to him who had +belaboured him when he was a boy at the village school--it was queer.' + +'A curious little bit of social history,' said Elsmere. 'Well, and then +he died and the family lived on?' + +'Yes, he died the year after he bought the place. And perhaps the most +interesting thing of all has been the development of his eldest +daughter. She has watched over her mother, she has brought up her +sisters; but much more than that: she has become a sort of Deborah in +these valleys,' said the vicar, smiling. 'I don't count for much, she +counts for a great deal. I can't get the people to tell me their +secrets, she can. There is a sort of natural sympathy between them and +her. She nurses them, she scolds them, she preaches to them, and they +take it from her when they won't take it from us. Perhaps it is the +feeling of blood. Perhaps they think it as mysterious a dispensation of +Providence as I do that that brutal, swearing, whisky-drinking stock +should have ended in anything so saintly and so beautiful as Catherine +Leyburn.' + +The quiet, commonplace clergyman spoke with a sudden tremor of feeling. +His wife, however, looked at him with a dissatisfied expression. + +'You always talk,' she said, 'as if there were no one but Catherine. +People generally like the other two much better. Catherine is so +stand-off.' + +'Oh, the other two are very well,' said the vicar, but in a different +tone. + +Robert sat ruminating. Presently his host and hostess went in, and the +young man went sauntering up the climbing garden-path to the point where +only a railing divided it from the fell-side. From here his eye +commanded the whole of the upper end of the valley--a bare, desolate +recess filled with evening shadow, and walled round by masses of gray +and purple crag, except in one spot, where a green intervening fell +marked the course of the pass connecting the dale with the Ullswater +district. Below him were church and parsonage; beyond, the stone-filled +babbling river, edged by intensely green fields, which melted +imperceptibly into the browner stretches of the opposite mountain. Most +of the scene, except where the hills at the end rose highest and shut +out the sun, was bathed in quiet light. The white patches on the +farmhouses, the heckberry trees along the river and the road, caught and +emphasised the golden rays which were flooding into the lower valley as +into a broad green cup. Close by, in the little vicarage orchard, were +fruit trees in blossom; the air was mild and fragrant, though to the +young man from the warmer south there was still a bracing quality in the +soft western breeze which blew about him. + +He stood there bathed in silent enchantment, an eager nature going out +to meet and absorb into itself the beauty and peace of the scene. Lines +of Wordsworth were on his lips; the little well-worn volume was in his +pocket, but he did not need to bring it out; and his voice had all a +poet's intensity of emphasis as he strolled along, reciting under his +breath-- + + 'It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, + The holy time is quiet as a nun + Breathless with adoration!' + +Presently his eye was once more caught by the roof of Burwood, lying +beneath him on its promontory of land, in the quiet shelter of its +protecting trees. He stopped, and a delicate sense of harmonious +association awoke in him. That girl, atoning as it were by her one white +life for all the crimes and coarseness of her ancestry: the idea of her +seemed to steal into the solemn golden evening and give it added poetry +and meaning. The young man felt a sudden strong curiosity to see her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The festal tea had begun, and Mrs. Thornburgh was presiding. Opposite to +her, on the vicar's left, sat the formidable rector's wife. Poor Mrs. +Thornburgh had said to herself as she entered the room on the arm of Mr. +Mayhew, the incumbent of the neighbouring valley of Shanmoor, that the +first _coup d'oeil_ was good. The flowers had been arranged in the +afternoon by Rose; Sarah's exertions had made the silver shine again; a +pleasing odour of good food underlay the scent of the bluebells and +fern; and what with the snowy table-linen, and the pretty dresses and +bright faces of the younger people, the room seemed to be full of an +incessant play of crisp and delicate colour. + +But just as the vicar's wife was sinking into her seat with a little +sigh of wearied satisfaction, she caught sight suddenly of an eye-glass +at the other end of the table slowly revolving in a large and jewelled +hand. The judicial eye behind the eye-glass travelled round the table, +lingering, as it seemed to Mrs. Thornburgh's excited consciousness, on +every spot where cream or jelly or _meringue_ should have been and was +not. When it dropped with a harsh little click, the hostess, unable to +restrain herself, rushed into desperate conversation with Mr. Mayhew, +giving vent to incoherencies in the course of the first act of the meal +which did but confirm her neighbour--a grim, uncommunicative person--in +his own devotion to a policy of silence. Meanwhile the vicar was +grappling on very unequal terms with Mrs. Seaton. Mrs. Leyburn had +fallen to young Elsmere. Catherine Leyburn was paired off with Dr. +Baker, Agnes with Mr. Mayhew's awkward son--a tongue-tied youth, lately +an unattached student at Oxford, but now relegated, owing to an +invincible antipathy to Greek verbs, to his native air, till some other +opening into the great world should be discovered for him. + +Rose was on Robert Elsmere's right. Agnes had coaxed her into a white +dress as being the least startling garment she possessed, and she was +like a Stothard picture with her high waist, her blue sash ribbon, her +slender neck and brilliant head. She had already cast many curious +glances at the Thornburghs' guest. 'Not a prig, at any rate,' she +thought to herself with satisfaction, 'so Agnes is quite wrong.' + +As for the young man, who was, to begin with, in that state which so +often follows on the long confinement of illness, when the light seems +brighter and scents keener and experience sharper than at other times, +he was inwardly confessing that Mrs. Thornburgh had not been romancing. +The vivid creature at his elbow, with her still unsoftened angles and +movements, was in the first dawn of an exceptional beauty; the plain +sister had struck him before supper in the course of twenty minutes' +conversation as above the average in point of manners and talk. As to +Miss Leyburn, he had so far only exchanged a bow with her, but he was +watching her now, as he sat opposite to her, out of his quick observant +eyes. + +She, too, was in white. As she turned to speak to the youth at her side, +Elsmere caught the fine outline of the head, the unusually clear and +perfect moulding of the brow, nose, and upper lip. The hollows in the +cheeks struck him, and the way in which the breadth of the forehead +somewhat overbalanced the delicacy of the mouth and chin. The face, +though still quite young, and expressing a perfect physical health, had +the look of having been polished and refined away to its foundations. +There was not an ounce of superfluous flesh on it, and not a vestige of +Rose's peach-like bloom. Her profile, as he saw it now, had the +firmness, the clear whiteness, of a profile on a Greek gem. + +She was actually making that silent, awkward lad talk! Robert, who, out +of his four years' experience as an Oxford tutor, had an abundant +compassion for and understanding of such beings as young Mayhew, watched +her with a pleased amusement, wondering how she did it. What? Had she +got him on carpentering, engineering--discovered his weak point? +Water-wheels, inventors, steam-engines--and the lumpish lad all in a +glow, talking away nineteen to the dozen. What tact, what kindness in +her gray-blue eyes! + +But he was interrupted by Mrs. Seaton, who was perfectly well aware that +she had beside her a stranger of some prestige, an Oxford man, and a +member, besides, of a well-known Sussex county family. She was a large +and commanding person, clad in black _moire_ silk. She wore a velvet +diadem, Honiton lace lappets, and a variety of chains, beads, and +bangles bestrewn about her that made a tinkling as she moved. Fixing her +neighbour with a bland majesty of eye, she inquired of him if he were +'any relation of Sir Mowbray Elsmere?' Robert replied that Sir Mowbray +Elsmere was his father's cousin, and the patron of the living to which +he had just been appointed. Mrs. Seaton then graciously informed him +that long ago--'when I was a girl in my native Hampshire'--her family +and Sir Mowbray Elsmere had been on intimate terms. Her father had been +devoted to Sir Mowbray. 'And I,' she added, with an evident though lofty +desire to please, 'retain an inherited respect, sir, for your name.' + +Robert bowed, but it was not clear from his look that the rector's wife +had made an impression. His general conception of his relative and +patron Sir Mowbray--who had been for many years the family black +sheep--was, indeed, so far removed from any notions of 'respect,' that +he had some difficulty in keeping his countenance under the lady's look +and pose. He would have been still more entertained had he known the +nature of the intimacy to which she referred. Mrs. Seaton's father, in +his capacity of solicitor in a small country town, had acted as +electioneering agent for Sir Mowbray (then plain Mr.) Elsmere on two +occasions--in 18--, when his client had been triumphantly returned at a +bye-election; and two years later, when a repetition of the tactics, so +successful in the previous contest, led to a petition, and to the +disappearance of the heir to the Elsmere property from parliamentary +life. + +Of these matters, however, he was ignorant, and Mrs. Seaton did not +enlighten him. Drawing herself up a little, and proceeding in a more +neutral tone than before, she proceeded to put him through a catechism +on Oxford, alternately cross-examining him and expounding to him her own +views and her husband's on the functions of Universities. She and the +Archdeacon conceived that the Oxford authorities were mainly occupied in +ruining the young men's health by over-examination, and poisoning their +minds by free-thinking opinions. In her belief, if it went on, the +mothers of England would refuse to send their sons to these ancient but +deadly resorts. She looked at him sternly as she spoke, as though +defying him to be flippant in return. And he, indeed, did his polite +best to be serious. + +But it somewhat disconcerted him in the middle to find Miss Leyburn's +eyes upon him. And undeniably there was a spark of laughter in them, +quenched, as soon as his glance crossed hers, under long lashes. How +that spark had lit up the grave, pale face! He longed to provoke it +again, to cross over to her and say, 'What amused you? Do you think me +very young and simple? Tell me about these people.' + +But, instead, he made friends with Rose. Mrs. Seaton was soon engaged in +giving the vicar advice on his parochial affairs, an experience which +generally ended by the appearance of certain truculent elements in one +of the mildest of men. So Robert was free to turn to his girl neighbour +and ask her what people meant by calling the Lakes rainy. + +'I understand it is pouring at Oxford. To-day your sky here has been +without a cloud, and your rivers are running dry.' + +'And you have mastered our climate in twenty-four hours, like the +tourists--isn't it?--that do the Irish question in three weeks?' + +'Not the answer of a bread-and-butter miss,' he thought to himself, +amused, 'and yet what a child it looks.' + +He threw himself into a war of words with her, and enjoyed it extremely. +Her brilliant colouring, her gestures as fresh and untamed as the +movements of the leaping river outside, the mixture in her of girlish +pertness and ignorance with the promise of a remarkable general +capacity, made her a most taking, provoking creature. Mrs. +Thornburgh--much recovered in mind since Dr. Baker had praised the +pancakes by which Sarah had sought to prove to her mistress the +superfluity of naughtiness involved in her recourse to foreign +cooks--watched the young man and maiden with a face which grew more and +more radiant. The conversation in the garden had not pleased her. Why +should people always talk of Catherine; Mrs. Thornburgh stood in awe of +Catherine and had given her up in despair. It was the other two whose +fortunes, as possibly directed by her, filled her maternal heart with +sympathetic emotion. + +Suddenly in the midst of her satisfaction she had a rude shock. What on +earth was the vicar doing? After they had got through better than any +one could have hoped, thanks to a discreet silence and Sarah's +makeshifts, there was the master of the house pouring the whole tale of +his wife's aspirations and disappointment into Mrs. Seaton's ear! If it +were ever allowable to rush upon your husband at table and stop his +mouth with a dinner napkin, Mrs. Thornburgh could at this moment have +performed such a feat. She nodded and coughed and fidgeted in vain! + +The vicar's confidences were the result of a fit of nervous +exasperation. Mrs. Seaton had just embarked upon an account of 'our +charming time with Lord Fleckwood.' Now Lord Fleckwood was a distant +cousin of Archdeacon Seaton, and the great magnate of the neighbourhood, +not, however, a very respectable magnate. Mr. Thornburgh had heard +accounts of Lupton Castle from Mrs. Seaton on at least half a dozen +different occasions. Privately he believed them all to refer to one +visit, an event of immemorial antiquity periodically brought up to date +by Mrs. Seaton's imagination. But the vicar was a timid man, without the +courage of his opinions, and in his eagerness to stop the flow of his +neighbour's eloquence he could think of no better device, or more +suitable rival subject, than to plunge into the story of the drunken +carrier, and the pastry still reposing on the counter at Randall's. + +He blushed, good man, when he was well in it. His wife's horrified +countenance embarrassed him. But anything was better than Lord +Fleckwood. Mrs. Seaton listened to him with the slightest smile on her +formidable lip. The story was pleasing to her. + +'At least, my dear sir,' she said when he paused, nodding her diademed +head with stately emphasis, 'Mrs. Thornburgh's inconvenience may have +one good result. You can now make an example of the carrier. It is our +special business, as my husband always says, who are in authority, to +bring their low vices home to these people.' + +The vicar fidgeted in his chair. What ineptitude had he been guilty of +now! By way of avoiding Lord Fleckwood he might have started Mrs. Seaton +on teetotalism. Now if there was one topic on which this awe-inspiring +woman was more awe-inspiring than another it was on the topic of +teetotalism. The vicar had already felt himself a criminal as he drank +his modest glass of claret under her eye. + +'Oh, the drunkenness about here is pretty bad,' said Dr. Baker, from the +other end of the table. 'But there are plenty of worse things in these +valleys. Besides, what person in his senses would think of trying to +disestablish John Backhouse? He and his queer brother are as much a +feature of the valley as High Fell. We have too few originals left to be +so very particular about trifles.' + +'Trifles?' repeated Mrs. Seaton in a deep voice, throwing up her eyes. +But she would not venture an argument with Dr. Baker. He had all the +cheery self-confidence of the old established local doctor, who knows +himself to be a power, and neither Mrs. Seaton nor her restless +intriguing little husband had ever yet succeeded in putting him down. + +'You must see these two old characters,' said Dr. Baker to Elsmere +across the table. 'They are relics of a Westmoreland which will soon +have disappeared. Old John, who is going on for seventy, is as tough an +old dalesman as ever you saw. He doesn't measure his cups, but he would +scorn to be floored by them. I don't believe he does drink much, but if +he does there is probably no amount of whisky that he couldn't carry. +Jim, the other brother, is about five years older. He is a kind of +softie--all alive on one side of his brain, and a noodle on the other. A +single glass of rum and water puts him under the table. And as he never +can refuse this glass, and as the temptation generally seizes him when +they are on their rounds, he is always getting John into disgrace. John +swears at him and slangs him. No use. Jim sits still, looks--well, +nohow. I never saw an old creature with a more singular gift of denuding +his face of all expression. John vows he shall go to the "house"; he has +no legal share in the business; the house and the horse and cart are +John's. Next day you see them on the cart again just as usual. In +reality neither brother can do without the other. And three days after, +the play begins again.' + +'An improving spectacle for the valley,' said Mrs. Seaton drily. + +'Oh, my dear madam,' said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders, 'we can't +all be so virtuous. If old Jim is a drunkard, he has got a heart of his +own somewhere, and can nurse a dying niece like a woman. Miss Leyburn +can tell us something about that.' + +And he turned round to his neighbour with a complete change of +expression, and a voice that had a new note in it of affectionate +respect. Catherine coloured as if she did not like being addressed on +the subject, and just nodded a little with gentle affirmative eyes. + +'A strange case,' said Dr. Baker, again looking at Elsmere. 'It is a +family that is original and old-world even in its ways of dying. I have +been a doctor in these parts for five-and-twenty years. I have seen what +you may call old Westmoreland die out--costume, dialect, superstitions. +At least, as to dialect, the people have become bi-lingual. I sometimes +think they talk it to each other as much as ever, but some of them won't +talk it to you and me at all. And as to superstitions, the only ghost +story I know that still has some hold on popular belief is the one which +attaches to this mountain here, High Fell, at the end of this valley.' + +He paused a moment. A salutary sense has begun to penetrate even modern +provincial society, that no man may tell a ghost story without leave. +Rose threw a merry glance at him. They two were very old friends. Dr. +Baker had pulled out her first teeth and given her a sixpence afterwards +for each operation. The pull was soon forgotten; the sixpence lived on +gratefully in a child's warm memory. + +'Tell it,' she said; 'we give you leave. We won't interrupt you unless +you put in too many inventions.' + +'You invite me to break the first law of story-telling, Miss Rose,' said +the doctor, lifting a finger at her. 'Every man is bound to leave a +story better than he found it. However, I couldn't tell it if I would. I +don't know what makes the poor ghost walk; and if you do, I shall say +you invent. But at any rate there is a ghost, and she walks along the +side of High Fell at midnight every Midsummer day. If you see her and +she passes you in silence, why you only get a fright for your pains. But +if she speaks to you, you die within the year. Old John Backhouse is a +widower with one daughter. This girl saw the ghost last Midsummer day, +and Miss Leyburn and I are now doing our best to keep her alive over the +next; but with very small prospect of success.' + +'What is the girl dying of?--fright?' asked Mrs. Seaton harshly. + +'Oh no!' said the doctor hastily, 'not precisely. A sad story; better +not inquire into it. But at the present moment the time of her death +seems likely to be determined by the strength of her own and other +people's belief in the ghost's summons.' + +Mrs. Seaton's grim mouth relaxed into an ungenial smile. She put up her +eye-glass and looked at Catherine. 'An unpleasant household, I should +imagine,' she said shortly, 'for a young lady to visit.' + +Doctor Baker looked at the rector's wife, and a kind of flame came into +his eyes. He and Mrs. Seaton were old enemies, and he was a +quick-tempered mercurial sort of man. + +'I presume that one's guardian angel may have to follow one sometimes +into unpleasant quarters,' he said hotly. 'If this girl lives, it will +be Miss Leyburn's doing; if she dies, saved and comforted, instead of +lost in this world and the next, it will be Miss Leyburn's doing too. +Ah, my dear young lady, let me alone! You tie my tongue always, and I +won't have it.' + +And the doctor turned his weather-beaten elderly face upon her with a +look which was half defiance and half apology. She, on her side, had +flushed painfully, laying her white finger-tips imploringly on his arm. +Mrs. Seaton turned away with a little dry cough, so did her spectacled +sister at the other end of the table. Mrs. Leyburn, on the other hand, +sat in a little ecstasy, looking at Catherine and Dr. Baker, something +glistening in her eyes. Robert Elsmere alone showed presence of mind. +Bending across to Dr. Baker, he asked him a sudden question as to the +history of a certain strange green mound or barrow that rose out of a +flat field not far from the vicarage windows. Dr. Baker grasped his +whiskers, threw the young man a queer glance, and replied. Thenceforward +he and Robert kept up a lively antiquarian talk on the traces of Norse +settlement in the Cumbrian valleys, which lasted till the ladies left +the dining-room. + +As Catherine Leyburn went out Elsmere stood holding the door open. She +could not help raising her eyes upon him, eyes full of a half-timid, +half-grateful friendliness. His own returned her look with interest. + +'"A spirit, but a woman too,"' he thought to himself with a new-born +thrill of sympathy, as he went back to his seat. She had not yet said a +direct word to him, and yet he was curiously convinced that here was one +of the most interesting persons, and one of the persons most interesting +to _him_, that he had ever met. What mingled delicacy and strength in +the hand that had lain beside her on the dinner-table--what potential +depths of feeling in the full dark-fringed eye! + +Half an hour later, when Elsmere re-entered the drawing-room, he found +Catherine Leyburn sitting by an open French window that looked out on +the lawn, and on the dim rocky face of the fell. Adeline Baker, a +stooping red-armed maiden, with a pretty face, set off, as she imagined, +by a vast amount of cheap finery, was sitting beside her, studying her +with a timid adoration. The doctor's daughter regarded Catherine +Leyburn, who during the last five years had made herself almost as +distinct a figure in the popular imagination of a few Westmoreland +valleys as Sister Dora among her Walsall miners, as a being of a totally +different order from herself. She was glued to the side of her idol, but +her shy and awkward tongue could find hardly anything to say to her. +Catherine, however, talked away, gently stroking the while the girl's +rough hand which lay on her knee, to the mingled pain and bliss of its +owner, who was outraged by the contrast between her own ungainly member +and Miss Leyburn's delicate fingers. + +Mrs. Seaton was on the sofa beside Mrs. Thornburgh, amply avenging +herself on the vicar's wife for any checks she might have received at +tea. Miss Barks, her sister, an old maid with a face that seemed to be +perpetually peering forward, light colourless hair surmounted by a cap +adorned with artificial nasturtiums, and white-lashed eyes armed with +spectacles, was having her way with Mrs. Leyburn, inquiring into the +household arrangements of Burwood with a cross-examining power which +made the mild widow as pulp before her. + +When the gentlemen entered, Mrs. Thornburgh looked round hastily. She +herself had opened that door into the garden. A garden on a warm summer +night offers opportunities no schemer should neglect. Agnes and Rose +were chattering and laughing on the gravel path just outside it, their +white girlish figures showing temptingly against the dusky background of +garden and fell. It somewhat disappointed the vicar's wife to see her +tall guest take a chair and draw it beside Catherine--while Adeline +Baker awkwardly got up and disappeared into the garden. + +Elsmere felt it an unusually interesting moment, so strong had been his +sense of attraction at tea; but like the rest of us he could find +nothing more telling to start with than a remark about the weather. +Catherine in her reply asked him if he were quite recovered from the +attack of low fever he was understood to have been suffering from. + +'Oh yes,' he said brightly, 'I am very nearly as fit as I ever was, and +more eager than I ever was to get to work. The idling of it is the worst +part of illness. However, in a month from now I must be at my living, +and I can only hope it will give me enough to do.' + +Catherine looked up at him with a quick impulse of liking. What an eager +face it was! Eagerness, indeed, seemed to be the note of the whole man, +of the quick eyes and mouth, the flexible hands and energetic movements. +Even the straight, stubbly hair, its owner's passing torment, standing +up round the high open brow, seemed to help the general impression of +alertness and vigour. + +'Your mother, I hear, is already there?' said Catherine. + +'Yes. My poor mother!' and the young man smiled half sadly. 'It is a +curious situation for both of us. This living which has just been +bestowed on me is my father's old living. It is in the gift of my +cousin, Sir Mowbray Elsmere. My great-uncle'--he drew himself together +suddenly. 'But I don't know why I should imagine that these things +interest other people,' he said, with a little quick, almost comical, +accent of self-rebuke. + +'Please go on,' cried Catherine hastily. The voice and manner were +singularly pleasant to her; she wished he would not interrupt himself +for nothing. + +'Really? Well then, my great-uncle, old Sir William, wished me to have +it when I grew up. I was against it for a long time, took orders; but I +wanted something more stirring than a country parish. One has dreams of +many things. But one's dreams come to nothing. I got ill at Oxford. The +doctors forbade the town work. The old incumbent who had held the living +since my father's death died precisely at that moment. I felt myself +booked, and gave in to various friends; but it is second best.' + +She felt a certain soreness and discomfort in his tone, as though his +talk represented a good deal of mental struggle in the past. + +'But the country is not idleness,' she said, smiling at him. Her cheek +was leaning lightly on her hand, her eyes had an unusual animation; and +her long white dress, guiltless of any ornament save a small +old-fashioned locket hanging from a thin old chain and a pair of hair +bracelets with engraved gold clasps, gave her the nobleness and +simplicity of a Romney picture. + +'_You_ do not find it so, I imagine,' he replied, bending forward to her +with a charming gesture of homage. He would have liked her to talk to +him of her work and her interests. He, too, mentally compared her to +Saint Elizabeth. He could almost have fancied the dark red flowers in +her white lap. But his comparison had another basis of feeling than +Rose's. + +However, she would not talk to him of herself. The way in which she +turned the conversation brought home to his own expansive confiding +nature a certain austerity and stiffness of fibre in her which for the +moment chilled him. But as he got her into talk about the neighbourhood, +the people and their ways, the impression vanished again, so far at +least as there was anything repellent about it. Austerity, strength, +individuality, all these words indeed he was more and more driven to +apply to her. She was like no other woman he had ever seen. It was not +at all that she was more remarkable intellectually. Every now and then, +indeed, as their talk flowed on, he noticed in what she said an absence +of a good many interests and attainments which in his ordinary +south-country women friends he would have assumed as a matter of course. + +'I understand French very little, and I never read any,' she said to him +once, quietly, as he fell to comparing some peasant story she had told +him with an episode in one of George Sand's Berry novels. It seemed to +him that she knew her Wordsworth by heart. And her own mountain life, +her own rich and meditative soul, had taught her judgments and comments +on her favourite poet which stirred Elsmere every now and then to +enthusiasm--so true they were and pregnant, so full often of a natural +magic of expression. On the other hand, when he quoted a very well-known +line of Shelley's she asked him where it came from. She seemed to him +deeper and simpler at every moment; her very limitations of sympathy and +knowledge, and they were evidently many, began to attract him. The +thought of her ancestry crossed him now and then, rousing in him now +wonder, and now a strange sense of congruity and harmony. Clearly she +was the daughter of a primitive unexhausted race. And yet what purity, +what refinement, what delicate perception and self-restraint! + +Presently they fell on the subject of Oxford. + +'Were you ever there?' he asked her. + +'Once,' she said. 'I went with my father one summer term. I have only a +confused memory of it--of the quadrangles, and a long street, a great +building with a dome, and such beautiful trees!' + +'Did your father often go back?' + +'No; never towards the latter part of his life'--and her clear eyes +clouded a little; 'nothing made him so sad as the thought of Oxford.' + +She paused, as though she had strayed on to a topic where expression was +a little difficult. Then his face and clerical dress seemed somehow to +reassure her, and she began again, though reluctantly. + +'He used to say that it was all so changed. The young fellows he saw +when he went back scorned everything he cared for. Every visit to Oxford +was like a stab to him. It seemed to him as if the place was full of men +who only wanted to destroy and break down everything that was sacred to +him.' + +Elsmere reflected that Richard Leyburn must have left Oxford about the +beginning of the Liberal reaction, which followed Tractarianism, and in +twenty years transformed the University. + +'Ah!' he said, smiling gently. 'He should have lived a little longer. +There is another turn of the tide since then. The destructive wave has +spent itself, and at Oxford now many of us feel ourselves on the upward +swell of a religious revival.' + +Catherine looked up at him with a sweet sympathetic look. That dim +vision of Oxford, with its gray, tree-lined walls, lay very near to her +heart for her father's sake. And the keen face above her seemed to +satisfy and respond to her inner feeling. + +'I know the High Church influence is very strong,' she said, hesitating; +'but I don't know whether father would have liked that much better.' + +The last words had slipped out of her, and she checked herself suddenly. +Robert saw that she was uncertain as to his opinions, and afraid lest +she might have said something discourteous. + +'It is not only the High Church influence,' he said quickly, 'it is a +mixture of influences from all sorts of quarters that has brought about +the new state of things. Some of the factors in the change were hardly +Christian at all, by name, but they have all helped to make men think, +to stir their hearts, to win them back to the old ways.' + +His voice had taken to itself a singular magnetism. Evidently the +matters they were discussing were matters in which he felt a deep and +loving interest. His young boyish face had grown grave; there was a +striking dignity and weight in his look and manner, which suddenly +roused in Catherine the sense that she was speaking to a man of +distinction, accustomed to deal on equal terms with the large things of +life. She raised her eyes to him for a moment, and he saw in them a +beautiful, mystical light--responsive, lofty, full of soul. + +The next moment, it apparently struck her sharply that their +conversation was becoming incongruous with its surroundings. Behind them +Mrs. Thornburgh was bustling about with candles and music-stools, +preparing for a performance on the flute by Mr. Mayhew, the black-browed +vicar of Shanmoor, and the room seemed to be pervaded by Mrs. Seaton's +strident voice. Her strong natural reserve asserted itself, and her face +settled again into the slight rigidity of expression characteristic of +it. She rose and prepared to move farther into the room. + +'We must listen,' she said to him, smiling, over her shoulder. + +And she left him, settling herself by the side of Mrs. Leyburn. He had a +momentary sense of rebuff. The man, quick, sensitive, sympathetic, felt +in the woman the presence of a strength, a self-sufficingness which was +not all attractive. His vanity, if he had cherished any during their +conversation, was not flattered by its close. But as he leant against +the window-frame waiting for the music to begin, he could hardly keep +his eyes from her. He was a man who, by force of temperament, made +friends readily with women, though except for a passing fancy or two he +had never been in love; and his sense of difficulty with regard to this +stiffly-mannered, deep-eyed country girl brought with it an unusual +stimulus and excitement. + +Miss Barks seated herself deliberately, after much fiddling with +bracelets and gloves, and tied back the ends of her cap behind her. Mr. +Mayhew took out his flute and lovingly put it together. He was a +powerful swarthy man, who said little and was generally alarming to the +ladies of the neighbourhood. To propitiate him, they asked him to bring +his flute, and nervously praised the fierce music he made on it. Miss +Barks enjoyed a monopoly of his accompaniments, and there were many who +regarded her assiduity as a covert attack upon the widower's name and +position. If so, it was Greek meeting Greek, for with all his +taciturnity the vicar of Shanmoor was well able to defend himself. + +'Has it begun?' said a hurried whisper at Elsmere's elbow, and turning +he saw Rose and Agnes on the step of the window, Rose's cheeks flushed +by the night breeze, a shawl thrown lightly round her head. + +She was answered by the first notes of the flute, following some +powerful chords in which Miss Barks had tested at once the strength of +her wrists and the vicarage piano. + +The girl made a little _moue_ of disgust, and turned as though to fly +down the steps again. But Agnes caught her and held her, and the +mutinous creature had to submit to be drawn inside while Mrs. +Thornburgh, in obedience to complaints of draughts from Mrs. Seaton +motioned to have the window shut. Rose established herself against the +wall, her curly head thrown back, her eyes half shut, her mouth +expressing an angry endurance. Robert watched her with amusement. + +It was certainly a remarkable duet. After an _adagio_ opening in which +flute and piano were at magnificent cross purposes from the beginning, +the two instruments plunged into an _allegro_ very long and very fast, +which became ultimately a desperate race between the competing +performers for the final chord. Mr. Mayhew toiled away, taxing the +resources of his whole vast frame to keep his small instrument in a line +with the piano, and taxing them in vain. For the shriller and the wilder +grew the flute, and the greater the exertion of the dark Hercules +performing on it, the fiercer grew the pace of the piano. Rose stamped +her little foot. + +'Two bars ahead last page,' she murmured, 'three bars this: will no one +stop her!' + +But the pages flew past, turned assiduously by Agnes, who took a +sardonic delight in these performances, and every countenance in the +room seemed to take a look of sharpened anxiety as to how the duet was +to end, and who was to be victor. + +Nobody knowing Miss Barks need to have been in any doubt as to that! +Crash came the last chord, and the poor flute nearly half a page behind +was left shrilly hanging in mid-air, forsaken and companionless, an +object of derision to gods and men. + +'Ah! I took it a little fast!' said the lady, triumphantly looking up at +the discomfited clergyman. + +'Mr. Elsmere,' said Rose, hiding herself in the window curtain beside +him, that she might have her laugh in safety. 'Do they play like that in +Oxford, or has Long Whindale a monopoly?' + +But before he could answer, Mrs. Thornburgh called to the girl-- + +'Rose! Rose! Don't go out again! It is your turn next!' + +Rose advanced reluctantly, her head in air. Robert, remembering +something that Mrs. Thornburgh had said to him as to her musical power, +supposed that she felt it an indignity to be asked to play in such +company. + +Mrs. Thornburgh motioned to him to come and sit by Mrs. Leyburn, a +summons which he obeyed with the more alacrity, as it brought him once +more within reach of Mrs. Leyburn's eldest daughter. + +'Are you fond of music, Mr. Elsmere?' asked Mrs. Leyburn in her little +mincing voice, making room for his chair beside them. 'If you are, I am +sure my youngest daughter's playing will please you.' + +Catherine moved abruptly. Robert, while he made some pleasant answer, +divined that the reserved and stately daughter must be often troubled by +the mother's expansiveness. + +Meanwhile the room was again settling itself to listen. Mrs. Seaton was +severely turning over a photograph book. In her opinion the violin was +an unbecoming instrument for young women. Miss Barks sat upright with +the studiously neutral expression which befits the artist asked to +listen to a rival. Mr. Thornburgh sat pensive, one foot drooped over the +other. He was very fond of the Leyburn girls, but music seemed to him, +good man, one of the least comprehensible of human pleasures. As for +Rose, she had at last arranged herself and her accompanist Agnes, after +routing out from her music a couple of _Fantasie-Stuecke_, which she had +wickedly chosen as presenting the most severely classical contrast to +the 'rubbish' played by the preceding performers. She stood with her +lithe figure in its old-fashioned dress thrown out against the black +coats of a group of gentlemen beyond, one slim arched foot advanced, the +ends of the blue sash dangling, the hand and arm, beautifully formed, +but still wanting the roundness of womanhood, raised high for action, +the lightly poised head thrown back with an air. Robert thought her a +bewitching, half-grown thing, overflowing with potentialities of future +brilliance and empire. + +Her music astonished him. Where had a little provincial maiden learned +to play with this intelligence, this force, this delicate command of her +instrument? He was not a musician, and therefore could not gauge her +exactly, but he was more or less familiar with music and its standards, +as all people become nowadays who live in a highly cultivated society, +and he knew enough at any rate to see that what he was listening to was +remarkable, was out of the common range. Still more evident was this, +when from the humorous piece with which the sisters led off--a dance of +clowns, but clowns of Arcady--they slid into a delicate rippling _chant +d'amour_, the long drawn notes of the violin rising and falling on the +piano accompaniment with an exquisite plaintiveness. Where did a +_fillette_, unformed, inexperienced, win the secret of so much +eloquence--only from the natural dreams of a girl's heart as to 'the +lovers waiting in the hidden years'? + +But when the music ceased, Elsmere, after a hearty clap that set the +room applauding likewise, turned not to the musician but the figure +beside Mrs. Leyburn, the sister who had sat listening with an +impassiveness, a sort of gentle remoteness of look, which had piqued his +curiosity. The mother meanwhile was drinking in the compliments of Dr. +Baker. + +'Excellent!' cried Elsmere. 'How in the name of fortune, Miss Leyburn, +if I may ask, has your sister managed to get on so far in this remote +place?' + +'She goes to Manchester every year to some relations we have there,' +said Catherine quietly; 'I believe she has been very well taught.' + +'But surely,' he said warmly, 'it is more than teaching--more even than +talent--there is something like genius in it?' + +She did not answer very readily. + +'I don't know,' she said at last. 'Every one says it is very good.' + +He would have been repelled by her irresponsiveness but that her last +words had in them a note of lingering, of wistfulness, as though the +subject were connected with an inner debate not yet solved which +troubled her. He was puzzled, but certainly not repelled. + +Twenty minutes later everybody was going. The Seatons went first, and +the other guests lingered awhile afterwards to enjoy the sense of +freedom left by their departure. But at last the Mayhews, father and +son, set off on foot to walk home over the moonlit mountains; the doctor +tucked himself and his daughter into his high gig, and drove off with a +sweeping ironical bow to Rose, who had stood on the steps teasing him to +the last; and Robert Elsmere offered to escort the Miss Leyburns and +their mother home. + +Mrs. Thornburgh was left protesting to the vicar's incredulous ears that +never--never as long as she lived--would she have Mrs. Seaton inside her +doors again. + +'Her manners--' cried the vicar's wife, fuming--'her manners would +disgrace a Whinborough shop-girl. She has none--positively none!' + +Then suddenly her round comfortable face brightened and broadened out +into a beaming smile-- + +'But, after all, William, say what you will--and you always do say +the most unpleasant things you can think of--it was a great success. +I know the Leyburns enjoyed it. And as for Robert, I saw him +_looking_--_looking_ at that little minx Rose while she was playing as +if he couldn't take his eyes off her. What a picture she made, to be +sure!' + +The vicar, who had been standing with his back to the fireplace and his +hands in his pockets, received his wife's remarks first of all with +lifted eyebrows, and then with a low chuckle, half scornful, half +compassionate, which made her start in her chair. + +'Rose?' he said impatiently. 'Rose, my dear, where were your eyes?' + +It was very rarely indeed that on her own ground, so to speak, the vicar +ventured to take the whip-hand of her like this. Mrs. Thornburgh looked +at him in amazement. + +'Do you mean to say,' he asked, in raised tones, 'that you didn't notice +that from the moment you first introduced Robert to Catherine Leyburn, +he had practically no attention for anybody else?' + +Mrs. Thornburgh gazed at him--her memory flew back over the evening--and +her impulsive contradiction died on her lips. It was now her turn to +ejaculate-- + +'Catherine!' she said feebly. 'Catherine! how absurd!' + +But she turned and, with quickened breath, looked out of [the] window +after the retreating figures. Mrs. Thornburgh went up to bed that night +an inch taller. She had never felt herself more exquisitely +indispensable, more of a personage. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Before, however, we go on to chronicle the ultimate success or failure +of Mrs. Thornburgh as a match-maker, it may be well to inquire a little +more closely into the antecedents of the man who had suddenly roused so +much activity in her contriving mind. And, indeed, these antecedents are +important to us. For the interest of an uncomplicated story will +entirely depend upon the clearness with which the reader may have +grasped the general outlines of a quick soul's development. And this +development had already made considerable progress before Mrs. +Thornburgh set eyes upon her husband's cousin, Robert Elsmere. + +Robert Elsmere, then, was well born and fairly well provided with this +world's goods; up to a certain moderate point, indeed, a favourite of +fortune in all respects. His father belonged to the younger line of an +old Sussex family, and owed his pleasant country living to the family +instincts of his uncle, Sir William Elsmere, in whom Whig doctrines and +Conservative traditions were pretty evenly mixed, with a result of the +usual respectable and inconspicuous kind. His virtues had descended +mostly to his daughters, while all his various weaknesses and fatuities +had blossomed into vices in the person of his eldest son and heir, the +Sir Mowbray Elsmere of Mrs. Seaton's early recollections. + +Edward Elsmere, rector of Murewell in Surrey, and father of Robert, had +died before his uncle and patron; and his widow and son had been left to +face the world together. Sir William Elsmere and his nephew's wife had +not much in common, and rarely concerned themselves with each other. +Mrs. Elsmere was an Irishwoman by birth, with irregular Irish ways, and +a passion for strange garments, which made her the dread of the +conventional English squire; and, after she left the vicarage with her +son, she and her husband's uncle met no more. But when he died it was +found that the old man's sense of kinship, acting blindly and +irrationally, but with a slow inevitableness and certainty, had stirred +in him at the last in behalf of his great-nephew. He left him a money +legacy, the interest of which was to be administered by his mother till +his majority, and in a letter addressed to his heir he directed that, +should the boy on attaining manhood show any disposition to enter the +Church, all possible steps were to be taken to endow him with the family +living of Murewell, which had been his father's, and which at the time +of the old Baronet's death was occupied by another connection of the +family, already well stricken in years. + +Mowbray Elsmere had been hardly on speaking terms with his cousin +Edward, and was neither amiable nor generous, but his father knew that +the tenacious Elsmere instinct was to be depended on for the fulfilment +of his wishes. And so it proved. No sooner was his father dead than Sir +Mowbray curtly communicated his instructions to Mrs. Elsmere, then +living at the town of Harden for the sake of the great public school +recently transported there. She was to inform him, when the right moment +arrived, if it was the boy's wish to enter the Church, and meanwhile he +referred her to his lawyers for particulars of such immediate benefits +as were secured to her under the late Baronet's will. + +At the moment when Sir Mowbray's letter reached her, Mrs. Elsmere was +playing a leading part in the small society to which circumstances had +consigned her. She was the personal friend of half the masters and their +wives, and of at least a quarter of the school, while in the little town +which stretched up the hill covered by the new school buildings, she was +the helper, gossip, and confidante of half the parish. Her vast hats, +strange in fashion and inordinate in brim, her shawls of many colours, +hitched now to this side now to that, her swaying gait and looped-up +skirts, her spectacles, and the dangling parcels in which her soul +delighted, were the outward signs of a personality familiar to all. For +under those checked shawls which few women passed without an inward +marvel, there beat one of the warmest hearts that ever animated mortal +clay, and the prematurely wrinkled face, with its small quick eyes and +shrewd indulgent mouth, bespoke a nature as responsive as it was +vigorous. + +Their owner was constantly in the public eye. Her house, during the +hours at any rate in which her boy was at school, was little else than a +halting-place between two journeys. Visits to the poor, long watches by +the sick; committees, in which her racy breadth of character gave her +always an important place; discussions with the vicar, arguments with +the curates, a chat with this person and a walk with that--these were +the incidents and occupations which filled her day. Life was delightful +to her; action, energy, influence, were delightful to her; she could +only breathe freely in the very thick of the stirring, many-coloured +tumult of existence. Whether it was a pauper in the workhouse, or boys +from the school, or a girl caught in the tangle of a love-affair, it was +all the same to Mrs. Elsmere. Everything moved her, everything appealed +to her. Her life was a perpetual giving forth, and such was the inherent +nobility and soundness of the nature, that in spite of her curious Irish +fondness for the vehement romantic sides of experience, she did little +harm, and much good. Her tongue might be over-ready and her +championships indiscreet, but her hands were helpful, and her heart was +true. There was something contagious in her enjoyment of life, and with +all her strong religious faith, the thought of death, of any final pause +and silence in the whirr of the great social machine, was to her a +thought of greater chill and horror than to many a less brave and +spiritual soul. + +Till her boy was twelve years old, however, she had lived for him first +and foremost. She had taught him, played with him, learnt with him, +communicating to him through all his lessons her own fire and eagerness +to a degree which every now and then taxed the physical powers of the +child. Whenever the signs of strain appeared, however, the mother would +be overtaken by a fit of repentant watchfulness, and for days together +Robert would find her the most fascinating playmate, story-teller, and +romp, and forget all his precocious interest in history or vulgar +fractions. In after years when Robert looked back upon his childhood, he +was often reminded of the stories of Goethe's bringing-up. He could +recall exactly the same scenes as Goethe describes,--mother and child +sitting together in the gloaming, the mother's dark eyes dancing with +fun or kindling with dramatic fire, as she carried an imaginary hero or +heroine through a series of the raciest adventures; the child all +eagerness and sympathy, now clapping his little hands at the fall of the +giant, or the defeat of the sorcerer, and now arguing and suggesting in +ways which gave perpetually fresh stimulus to the mother's +inventiveness. He could see her dressing up with him on wet days, +reciting King Henry to his Prince Hal, or Prospero to his Ariel, or +simply giving free vent to her own exuberant Irish fun till both he and +she would sink exhausted into each other's arms, and end the evening +with a long croon, sitting curled up together in a big armchair in front +of the fire. He could see himself as a child of many crazes, eager for +poetry one week, for natural history the next, now spending all his +spare time in strumming, now in drawing, and now forgetting everything +but the delights of tree-climbing and bird-nesting. + +And through it all he had the quick memory of his mother's +companionship, he could recall her rueful looks whenever the eager +inaccurate ways, in which he reflected certain ineradicable tendencies +of her own, had lost him a school advantage; he could remember her +exhortations, with the dash in them of humorous self-reproach which made +them so stirring to the child's affection; and he could realise their +old far-off life at Murewell, the joys and the worries of it, and see +her now gossiping with the village folk, now wearing herself impetuously +to death in their service, and now roaming with him over the Surrey +heaths in search of all the dirty delectable things in which a +boy-naturalist delights. And through it all he was conscious of the same +vivid energetic creature, disposing with some difficulty and _fracas_ of +its own excess of nervous life. + +To return, however, to this same critical moment of Sir Mowbray's offer. +Robert at the time was a boy of sixteen, doing very well at school, a +favourite both with boys and masters. But as to whether his development +would lead him in the direction of taking orders, his mother had not the +slightest idea. She was not herself very much tempted by the prospect. +There were recollections connected with Murewell, and with the long +death in life which her husband had passed through there, which were +deeply painful to her; and, moreover, her sympathy with the clergy as a +class was by no means strong. Her experience had not been large, but the +feeling based on it promised to have all the tenacity of a favourite +prejudice. Fortune had handed over the parish of Harden to a ritualist +vicar. Mrs. Elsmere's inherited Evangelicalism--she came from an Ulster +county--rebelled against his doctrine, but the man himself was too +lovable to be disliked. Mrs. Elsmere knew a hero when she saw him. And +in his own narrow way, the small-headed emaciated vicar was a hero, and +he and Mrs. Elsmere had soon tasted each other's quality, and formed a +curious alliance, founded on true similarity in difference. + +But the criticism thus warded off the vicar expended itself with all the +more force on his subordinates. The Harden curates were the chief crook +in Mrs. Elsmere's otherwise tolerable lot. Her parish activities brought +her across them perpetually, and she could not away with them. Their +cassocks, their pretensions, their stupidities, roused the +Irish-woman's sense of humour at every turn. The individuals came and +went, but the type it seemed to her was always the same; and she made +their peculiarities the basis of a pessimist theory as to the future of +the English Church, which was a source of constant amusement to the very +broad-minded young men who filled up the school staff. She, so ready in +general to see all the world's good points, was almost blind when it was +a curate's virtues which were in question. So that, in spite of all her +persistent church-going, and her love of church performances as an +essential part of the busy human spectacle, Mrs. Elsmere had no yearning +for a clerical son. The little accidents of a personal experience had +led to wide generalisations, as is the way with us mortals, and the +position of the young parson in these days of increased parsonic +pretensions was, to Mrs. Elsmere, a position in which there was an +inherent risk of absurdity. She wished her son to impose upon her when +it came to his taking any serious step in life. She asked for nothing +better, indeed, than to be able, when the time came, to bow the motherly +knee to him in homage, and she felt a little dread lest, in her flat +moments, a clerical son might sometimes rouse in her that sharp sense of +the ludicrous which is the enemy of all happy illusions. + +Still, of course, the Elsmere proposal was one to be seriously +considered in its due time and place. Mrs. Elsmere only reflected that +it would certainly be better to say nothing of it to Robert until he +should be at college. His impressionable temperament, and the power he +had occasionally shown of absorbing himself in a subject till it +produced in him a fit of intense continuous brooding, unfavourable to +health and nervous energy, all warned her not to supply him, at a period +of rapid mental and bodily growth, with any fresh stimulus to the sense +of responsibility. As a boy, he had always shown himself religiously +susceptible to a certain extent, and his mother's religious likes and +dislikes had invariably found in him a blind and chivalrous support. He +was content to be with her, to worship with her, and to feel that no +reluctance or resistance divided his heart from hers. But there had been +nothing specially noteworthy or precocious about his religious +development, and at sixteen or seventeen, in spite of his affectionate +compliance, and his natural reverence for all persons and beliefs in +authority, his mother was perfectly aware that many other things in his +life were more real to him than religion. And on this point, at any +rate, she was certainly not the person to force him. + +He was such a schoolboy as a discerning master delights in--keen about +everything, bright, docile, popular, excellent at games. He was in the +sixth, moreover, as soon as his age allowed: that is to say, as soon as +he was sixteen; and his pride in everything connected with the great +body in which he had already a marked and important place was unbounded. +Very early in his school career the literary instincts, which had +always been present in him, and which his mother had largely helped to +develop by her own restless imaginative ways of approaching life and the +world, made themselves felt with considerable force. Some time before +his cousin's letter arrived, he had been taken with a craze for English +poetry, and, but for the corrective influence of a favourite tutor would +probably have thrown himself into it with the same exclusive passion as +he had shown for subject after subject in his eager ebullient childhood. +His mother found him at thirteen inditing a letter on the subject of +_The Faerie Queene_ to a school-friend, in which, with a sincerity which +made her forgive the pomposity, he remarked-- + +'I can truly say with Pope, that this great work has afforded me +extraordinary pleasure.' + +And about the same time, a master who was much interested in the boy's +prospects of getting the school prize for Latin verse, a subject for +which he had always shown a special aptitude, asked him anxiously, after +an Easter holiday, what he had been reading; the boy ran his hands +through his hair, and still keeping his finger between the leaves, shut +a book before him from which he had been learning by heart, and which +was, alas! neither Ovid nor Virgil. + +'I have just finished Belial!' he said, with a sigh of satisfaction, +'and am beginning Beelzebub.' + +A craze of this kind was naturally followed by a feverish period of +juvenile authorship, when the house was littered over with stanzas from +the opening canto of a great poem on Columbus, or with moral essays in +the manner of Pope, castigating the vices of the time with an energy +which sorely tried the gravity of the mother whenever she was called +upon, as she invariably was, to play audience to the young poet. At the +same time the classics absorbed in reality their full share of this fast +developing power. Virgil and AEschylus appealed to the same fibres, the +same susceptibilities, as Milton and Shakspeare, and the boy's quick +imaginative sense appropriated Greek and Latin life with the same ease +which it showed in possessing itself of that bygone English life whence +sprung the _Canterbury Tales_, or _As You Like It_. So that his tutor, +who was much attached to him, and who made it one of his main objects in +life to keep the boy's aspiring nose to the grindstone of grammatical +_minutiae_, began about the time of Sir Mowbray's letter to prophesy very +smooth things indeed to his mother as to his future success at college, +the possibility of his getting the famous St. Anselm's scholarship, and +so on. + +Evidently such a youth was not likely to depend for the attainment of a +foothold in life on a piece of family privilege. The world was all +before him where to choose, Mrs. Elsmere thought proudly to herself, as +her mother's fancy wandered rashly through the coming years. And for +many reasons she secretly allowed herself to hope that he would find for +himself some other post of ministry in a very various world than the +vicarage of Murewell. + +So she wrote a civil letter of acknowledgment to Sir Mowbray, informing +him that the intentions of his great-uncle should be communicated to the +boy when he should be of fit age to consider them, and that meanwhile +she was obliged to him for pointing out the procedure by which she might +lay hands on the legacy bequeathed to her in trust for her son, the +income of which would now be doubly welcome in view of his college +expenses. There the matter rested, and Mrs. Elsmere, during the two +years which followed, thought little more about it. She became more and +more absorbed in her boy's immediate prospects, in the care of his +health, which was uneven and tried somewhat by the strain of preparation +for an attempt on the St. Anselm's scholarship, and in the demands which +his ardent nature, oppressed with the weight of its own aspirations, was +constantly making upon her support and sympathy. + +At last the moment so long expected arrived. Mrs. Elsmere and her son +left Harden amid a chorus of good wishes, and settled themselves early +in November in Oxford lodgings. Robert was to have a few days' complete +holiday before the examination, and he and his mother spent it in +exploring the beautiful old town, now shrouded in the 'pensive glooms' +of still, gray autumn weather. There was no sun to light up the misty +reaches of the river; the trees in the Broad Walk were almost bare; the +Virginian creeper no longer shone in patches of delicate crimson on the +college walls; the gardens were damp and forsaken. But to Mrs. Elsmere +and Robert the place needed neither sun nor summer 'for beauty's +heightening.' On both of them it laid its old irresistible spell; the +sentiment haunting its quadrangles, its libraries, and its dim melodious +chapels, stole into the lad's heart and alternately soothed and +stimulated that keen individual consciousness which naturally +accompanies the first entrance into manhood. Here, on this soil, steeped +in memories, _his_ problems, _his_ struggles were to be fought out in +their turn. 'Take up thy manhood,' said the inward voice, 'and show what +is in thee. The hour and the opportunity have come!' + +And to this thrill of vague expectation, this young sense of an +expanding world, something of pathos and of sacredness was added by the +dumb influences of the old streets and weather-beaten stones. How +tenacious they were of the past! The dreaming city seemed to be still +brooding in the autumn calm over the long succession of her sons. The +continuity, the complexity of human experience; the unremitting effort +of the race; the stream of purpose running through it all; these were +the kind of thoughts which, in more or less inchoate and fragmentary +shape, pervaded the boy's sensitive mind as he rambled with his mother +from college to college. + +Mrs. Elsmere, too, was fascinated by Oxford. But for all her eager +interest, the historic beauty of the place aroused in her an under-mood +of melancholy, just as it did in Robert. Both had the impressionable +Celtic temperament, and both felt that a critical moment was upon them, +and that the Oxford air was charged with fate for each of them. For the +first time in their lives they were to be parted. The mother's long +guardianship was coming to an end. Had she loved him enough? Had she so +far fulfilled the trust her dead husband had imposed upon her? Would her +boy love her in the new life as he had loved her in the old? And could +her poor craving heart bear to see him absorbed by fresh interests and +passions, in which her share could be only, at the best, secondary and +indirect? + +One day--it was on the afternoon preceding the examination--she gave +hurried, half-laughing utterance to some of these misgivings of hers. +They were walking down the Lime-walk of Trinity Gardens; beneath their +feet a yellow fresh-strewn carpet of leaves, brown interlacing branches +overhead, and a red misty sun shining through the trunks. Robert +understood his mother perfectly, and the way she had of hiding a storm +of feeling under these tremulous comedy airs. So that, instead of +laughing too, he took her hand and, there being no spectators anywhere +to be seen in the damp November garden, he raised it to his lips with a +few broken words of affection and gratitude which very nearly overcame +the self-command of both of them. She dashed wildly into another +subject, and then suddenly it occurred to her impulsive mind that the +moment had come to make him acquainted with those dying intentions of +his great-uncle which we have already described. The diversion was a +welcome one, and the duty seemed clear. So, accordingly, she made him +give her all his attention while she told him the story and the terms of +Sir Mowbray's letter, forcing herself the while to keep her own opinions +and predilections as much as possible out of sight. + +Robert listened with interest and astonishment, the sense of a new-found +manhood waxing once more strong within him, as his mind admitted the +strange picture of himself occupying the place which had been his +father's; master of the house and the parish he had wandered over with +childish steps, clinging to the finger or the coat of the tall stooping +figure which occupied the dim background of his recollections. 'Poor +mother,' he said thoughtfully, when she paused, 'it would be hard upon +_you_ to go back to Murewell!' + +'Oh, you mustn't think of me when the time comes,' said Mrs. Elsmere, +sighing. 'I shall be a tiresome old woman, and you will be a young man +wanting a wife. There, put it out of your head, Robert. I thought I had +better tell you, for, after all, the fact may concern your Oxford life. +But you've got a long time yet before you need begin to worry about it.' + +The boy drew himself up to his full height, and tossed his tumbling +reddish hair back from his eyes. He was nearly six feet already, with a +long thin body and head, which amply justified his school nickname of +'the darning-needle.' + +'Don't you trouble either, mother,' he said, with a tone of decision: 'I +don't feel as if I should ever take orders.' + +Mrs. Elsmere was old enough to know what importance to attach to the +trenchancy of eighteen, but still the words were pleasant to her. + +The next day Robert went up for examination, and after three days of +hard work, and phases of alternate hope and depression, in which mother +and son excited one another to no useful purpose, there came the anxious +crowding round the college gate in the November twilight, and the sudden +flight of dispersing messengers bearing the news over Oxford. The +scholarship had been won by a precocious Etonian with an extraordinary +talent for 'stems,' and all that appertained thereto. But the exhibition +fell to Robert, and mother and son were well content. + +The boy was eager to come into residence at once, though he would +matriculate too late to keep the term. The college authorities were +willing, and on the Saturday following the announcement of his success +he was matriculated, saw the Provost, and was informed that rooms would +be found for him without delay. His mother and he gaily climbed +innumerable stairs to inspect the garrets of which he was soon to take +proud possession, sallying forth from them only to enjoy an agitated +delightful afternoon among the shops. Expenditure, always charming, +becomes under these circumstances a sacred and pontifical act. Never had +Mrs. Elsmere bought a teapot for herself with half the fervour which she +now threw into the purchase of Robert's; and the young man, accustomed +to a rather bare home, and an Irish lack of the little elegancies of +life, was overwhelmed when his mother actually dragged him into a +printseller's, and added an engraving or two to the enticing +miscellaneous mass of which he was already master. + +They only just left themselves time to rush back to their lodgings and +dress for the solemn function of a dinner with the Provost. The dinner, +however, was a great success. The short, shy manner of their +white-haired host thawed under the influence of Mrs. Elsmere's racy, +unaffected ways, and it was not long before everybody in the room had +more or less made friends with her, and forgiven her her marvellous drab +poplin, adorned with fresh pink ruchings for the occasion. As for the +Provost, Mrs. Elsmere had been told that he was a person of whom she +must inevitably stand in awe. But all her life long she had been like +the youth in the fairy tale who desired to learn how to shiver and could +not attain unto it. Fate had denied her the capacity of standing in awe +of anybody, and she rushed at her host as a new type, delighting in the +thrill which she felt creeping over her when she found herself on the +arm of one who had been the rallying-point of a hundred struggles, and +a centre of influence over thousands of English lives. + +And then followed the proud moment when Robert, in his exhibitioner's +gown, took her to service in the chapel on Sunday. The scores of young +faces, the full unison of the hymns, and finally the Provost's sermon, +with its strange brusqueries and simplicities of manner and +phrase--simplicities so suggestive, so full of a rich and yet +disciplined experience, that they haunted her mind for weeks +afterwards--completed the general impression made upon her by the Oxford +life. She came out, tremulous and shaken, leaning on her son's arm. She, +too, like the generations before her, had launched her venture into the +deep. Her boy was putting out from her into the ocean; henceforth she +could but watch him from the shore. Brought into contact with this +imposing University organisation, with all its suggestions of virile +energies and functions, the mother suddenly felt herself insignificant +and forsaken. He had been her all, her own, and now on this +training-ground of English youth, it seemed to her that the great human +society had claimed him from her. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In his Oxford life Robert surrendered himself to the best and most +stimulating influences of the place, just as he had done at school. He +was a youth of many friends, by virtue of a natural gift of sympathy, +which was no doubt often abused, and by no means invariably profitable +to its owner, but wherein, at any rate, his power over his fellows, like +the power of half the potent men in the world's history, always lay +rooted. He had his mother's delight in living. He loved the +cricket-field, he loved the river; his athletic instincts and his +athletic friends were always fighting in him with his literary instincts +and the friends who appealed primarily to the intellectual and moral +side of him. He made many mistakes alike in friends and in pursuits; in +the freshness of a young and roving curiosity he had great difficulty in +submitting himself to the intellectual routine of the University, a +difficulty which ultimately cost him much; but at the bottom of the lad, +all the time, there was a strength of will, a force and even tyranny of +conscience, which kept his charm and pliancy from degenerating into +weakness, and made it not only delightful, but profitable to love him. +He knew that his mother was bound up in him, and his being was set to +satisfy, so far as he could, all her honourable ambitions. + +His many undergraduate friends, strong as their influence must have been +in the aggregate on a nature so receptive, hardly concern us here. His +future life, so far as we can see, was most noticeably affected by two +men older than himself, and belonging to the dons--both of them fellows +and tutors of St. Anselm's, though on different planes of age. + +The first one, Edward Langham, was Robert's tutor, and about seven years +older than himself. He was a man about whom, on entering the college, +Robert heard more than the usual crop of stories. The healthy young +English barbarian has an aversion to the intrusion of more manner into +life than is absolutely necessary. Now, Langham was overburdened with +manner, though it was manner of the deprecating and not of the arrogant +order. Decisions, it seemed, of all sorts were abominable to him. To +help a friend he had once consented to be Pro-proctor. He resigned in a +month, and none of his acquaintances ever afterwards dared to allude to +the experience. If you could have got at his inmost mind, it was +affirmed, the persons most obnoxious there would have been found to be +the scout, who intrusively asked him every morning what he would have +for breakfast, and the college cook, who, till such a course was +strictly forbidden him, mounted to his room at half-past nine to inquire +whether he would 'dine in.' Being a scholar of considerable eminence, it +pleased him to assume on all questions an exasperating degree of +ignorance; and the wags of the college averred that when asked if it +rained, or if collections took place on such and such a day, it was pain +and grief to him to have to affirm positively, without qualifications, +that so it was. + +Such a man was not very likely, one would have thought, to captivate an +ardent, impulsive boy like Elsmere. Edward Langham, however, +notwithstanding undergraduate tales, was a very remarkable person. In +the first place, he was possessed of exceptional personal beauty. His +colouring was vividly black and white, closely curling jet-black hair, +and fine black eyes contrasting with a pale, clear complexion and even, +white teeth. So far he had the characteristics which certain Irishmen +share with most Spaniards. But the Celtic or Iberian brilliance was +balanced by a classical delicacy and precision of feature. He had the +brow, the nose, the upper lip, the finely-moulded chin, which belong to +the more severe and spiritual Greek type. Certainly of Greek blitheness +and directness there was no trace. The eye was wavering and profoundly +melancholy; all the movements of the tall, finely-built frame were +hesitating and doubtful. It was as though the man were suffering from +paralysis of some moral muscle or other; as if some of the normal +springs of action in him had been profoundly and permanently weakened. + +He had a curious history. He was the only child of a doctor in a +Lincolnshire country town. His old parents had brought him up in strict +provincial ways, ignoring the boy's idiosyncrasies as much as possible. +They did not want an exceptional and abnormal son, and they tried to put +down his dreamy, self-conscious habits by forcing him into the common, +middle-class, Evangelical groove. As soon as he got to college, however, +the brooding, gifted nature had a moment of sudden and, as it seemed to +the old people in Gainsborough, most reprehensible expansion. Poems were +sent to them, cut out of one or the other of the leading periodicals, +with their son's initials appended, and articles of philosophical +art-criticism, published while the boy was still an undergraduate--which +seemed to the stern father everything that was sophistical and +subversive. For they treated Christianity itself as an open question, +and showed especially scant respect for the 'Protestantism of the +Protestant religion.' The father warned him grimly that he was not going +to spend his hard-earned savings on the support of a free-thinking +scribbler, and the young man wrote no more till just after he had taken +a double first in Greats. Then the publication of an article in one of +the leading Reviews on 'The Ideals of Modern Culture' not only brought +him a furious letter from home stopping all supplies, but also lost him +a probable fellowship. His college was one of the narrowest and most +backward in Oxford, and it was made perfectly plain to him before the +fellowship examination that he would not be elected. + +He left the college, took pupils for a while, then stood for a vacant +fellowship at St. Anselm's, the Liberal headquarters, and got it with +flying colours. + +Thenceforward one would have thought that a brilliant and favourable +mental development was secured to him. Not at all. The moment of his +quarrel with his father and his college had, in fact, represented a +moment of energy, of comparative success, which never recurred. It was +as though this outburst of action and liberty had disappointed him, as +if some deep-rooted instinct--cold, critical, reflective--had reasserted +itself, condemning him and his censors equally. The uselessness of +utterance, the futility of enthusiasm, the inaccessibility of the ideal, +the practical absurdity of trying to realise any of the mind's inward +dreams: these were the kind of considerations which descended upon him, +slowly and fatally, crushing down the newly springing growths of action +or of passion. It was as though life had demonstrated to him the +essential truth of a childish saying of his own which had startled and +displeased his Calvinist mother years before. 'Mother,' the delicate, +large-eyed child had said to her one day in a fit of physical weariness, +'how is it I dislike the things I dislike so much more than I like the +things I like?' + +So he wrote no more, he quarrelled no more, he meddled with the great +passionate things of life and expression no more. On his taking up +residence in St. Anselm's, indeed, and on his being appointed first +lecturer and then tutor, he had a momentary pleasure in the thought of +teaching. His mind was a storehouse of thought and fact, and to the man +brought up at a dull provincial day-school and never allowed to +associate freely with his kind, the bright lads fresh from Eton and +Harrow about him were singularly attractive. But a few terms were enough +to scatter this illusion too. He could not be simple, he could not be +spontaneous; he was tormented by self-consciousness, and it was +impossible to him to talk and behave as those talk and behave who have +been brought up more or less in the big world from the beginning. So +this dream, too, faded, for youth asks, before all things, simplicity +and spontaneity in those who would take possession of it. His lectures, +which were at first brilliant enough to attract numbers of men from +other colleges, became gradually mere dry, ingenious skeletons, without +life or feeling. It was possible to learn a great deal from him; it was +not possible to catch from him any contagion of that _amor +intellectualis_ which had flamed at one moment so high within him. He +ceased to compose; but as the intellectual faculty must have some +employment, he became a translator, a contributor to dictionaries, a +microscopic student of texts, not in the interest of anything beyond, +but simply as a kind of mental stone-breaking. + +The only survival of that moment of glow and colour in his life was his +love of music and the theatre. Almost every year he disappeared to +France to haunt the Paris theatres for a fortnight; to Berlin or +Bayreuth to drink his fill of music. He talked neither of music nor of +acting; he made no one sharer of his enjoyment, if he did enjoy. It was +simply his way of cheating his creative faculty, which, though it had +grown impotent, was still there, still restless. Altogether a +melancholy, pitiable man--at once thorough-going sceptic and +thorough-going idealist, the victim of that critical sense which says No +to every impulse, and is always restlessly, and yet hopelessly, seeking +the future through the neglected and outraged present. + +And yet the man's instincts, at this period of his life at any rate, +were habitually kindly and affectionate. He knew nothing of women, and +was not liked by them, but it was not his fault if he made no impression +on the youth about him. It seemed to him that he was always seeking in +their eyes and faces for some light of sympathy which was always +escaping him, and which he was powerless to compel. He met it for the +first time in Robert Elsmere. The susceptible, poetical boy was struck +at some favourable moment by that romantic side of the ineffective +tutor--his silence, his melancholy, his personal beauty--which no one +else, with perhaps one or two exceptions among the older men, cared to +take into account; or touched perhaps by some note in him, surprised in +passing, of weariness or shrinking, as compared with the contemptuous +tone of the College towards him. He showed his liking impetuously, +boyishly, as his way was, and thenceforward during his University career +Langham became his slave. He had no ambition for himself; his motto +might have been that dismal one--'The small things of life are odious to +me, and the habit of them enslaves me; the great things of life are +eternally attractive to me, and indolence and fear put them by;' but for +the University chances of this lanky, red-haired youth--with his +eagerness, his boundless curiosity, his genius for all sorts of lovable +mistakes--he disquieted himself greatly. He tried to discipline the +roving mind, to infuse into the boy's literary temper the delicacy, the +precision, the subtlety of his own. His fastidious, critical habits of +work supplied exactly that antidote which Elsmere's main faults of haste +and carelessness required. He was always holding up before him the +inexhaustible patience and labour involved in all true knowledge; and it +was to the germs of critical judgment so implanted in him that Elsmere +owed many of the later growths of his development--growths with which we +have not yet to concern ourselves. + +And in return, the tutor allowed himself rarely, very rarely, a moment +of utterance from the depths of his real self. One evening in the summer +term following the boy's matriculation, Elsmere brought him an essay +after Hall, and they sat on talking afterwards. It was a rainy, +cheerless evening; the first contest of the Boats week had been rowed in +cold wind and sleet; a dreary blast whistled through the College. +Suddenly Langham reached out his hand for an open letter. 'I have had an +offer, Elsmere,' he said abruptly. + +And he put it into his hand. It was the offer of an important Scotch +professorship, coming from the man most influential in assigning it. The +last occupant of the post had been a scholar of European eminence. +Langham's contributions to a great foreign review, and certain Oxford +recommendations, were the basis of the present overture, which, coming +from one who was himself a classic of the classics, was couched in terms +flattering to any young man's vanity. + +Robert looked up with a joyful exclamation when he had finished the +letter. + +'I congratulate you, sir.' + +'I have refused it,' said Langham abruptly. + +His companion sat open-mouthed. Young as he was, he knew perfectly well +that this particular appointment was one of the blue ribbons of British +scholarship. + +'Do you think--' said the other in a tone of singular vibration, which +had in it a note of almost contemptuous irritation--'do you think _I_ am +the man to get and keep a hold on a rampagious class of hundreds of +Scotch lads? Do you think _I_ am the man to carry on what Reid +began--Reid, that old fighter, that preacher of all sorts of jubilant +dogmas?' + +He looked at Elsmere under his straight black brows imperiously. The +youth felt the nervous tension in the elder man's voice and manner, was +startled by a confidence never before bestowed upon him, close as that +unequal bond between them had been growing during the six months of his +Oxford life, and plucking up courage hurled at him a number of frank, +young expostulations, which really put into friendly shape all that was +being said about Langham in his College and in the University. Why was +he so self-distrustful, so absurdly diffident of responsibility, so +bent on hiding his great gifts under a bushel? + +The tutor smiled sadly, and, sitting down, buried his head in his hands +and said nothing for a while. Then he looked up and stretched out a hand +towards a book which lay on a table near. It was the _Reveries_ of +Senancour. 'My answer is written _here_,' he said. 'It will seem to you +now, Elsmere, mere Midsummer madness. May it always seem so to you. +Forgive me. The pressure of solitude sometimes is too great.' + +Elsmere looked up with one of his flashing, affectionate smiles, and +took the book from Langham's hand. He found on the open page a marked +passage: + +'Oh swiftly passing seasons of life! There was a time when men seemed to +be sincere; when thought was nourished on friendship, kindness, love; +when dawn still kept its brilliance, and the night its peace. _I can_, +the soul said to itself, and _I will_; I will do all that is right--all +that is natural. But soon resistance, difficulty, unforeseen, coming we +know not whence, arrest us, undeceive us, and the human yoke grows heavy +on our necks. Thenceforward we become merely sharers in the common woe. +Hemmed in on all sides, we feel our faculties only to realise their +impotence: we have time and strength to do what we _must_, never what we +will. Men go on repeating the words _work, genius, success_. Fools! Will +all these resounding projects, though they enable us to cheat ourselves, +enable us to cheat the icy fate which rules us and our globe, wandering +forsaken through the vast silence of the heavens?' + +Robert looked up startled, the book dropping from his hand. The words +sent a chill to the heart of one born to hope, to will, to crave. + +Suddenly Langham dashed the volume from him, almost with violence. + +'Forget that drivel, Elsmere. It was a crime to show it to you. It is +not sane; neither perhaps am I. But I am not going to Scotland. They +would request me to resign in a week.' + +Long after Elsmere, who had stayed talking a while on other things, had +gone, Langham sat on brooding over the empty grate. + +'Corrupter of youth!' he said to himself once bitterly. And perhaps it +was to a certain remorse in the tutor's mind that Elsmere owed an +experience of great importance to his after life. + +The name of a certain Mr. Grey had for some time before his entry at +Oxford been more or less familiar to Robert's ears as that of a person +of great influence and consideration at St. Anselm's. His tutor at +Harden had spoken of him in the boy's hearing as one of the most +remarkable men of the generation, and had several times impressed upon +his pupil that nothing could be so desirable for him as to secure the +friendship of such a man. It was on the occasion of his first interview +with the Provost, after the scholarship examination, that Robert was +first brought face to face with Mr. Grey. He could remember a short dark +man standing beside the Provost, who had been introduced to him by that +name, but the nervousness of the moment had been so great that the boy +had been quite incapable of giving him any special attention. + +During his first term and a half of residence, Robert occasionally met +Mr. Grey in the quadrangle or in the street, and the tutor, remembering +the thin, bright-faced youth, would return his salutations kindly, and +sometimes stop to speak to him, to ask him if he were comfortably +settled in his rooms, or make a remark about the boats. But the +acquaintance did not seem likely to progress, for Mr. Grey was a Greats +tutor, and Robert naturally had nothing to do with him as far as work +was concerned. + +However, a day or two after the conversation we have described, Robert, +going to Langham's rooms late in the afternoon to return a book which +had been lent to him, perceived two figures standing talking on the +hearth-rug, and by the western light beating in recognised the thick-set +frame and broad brow of Mr. Grey. + +'Come in, Elsmere,' said Langham, as he stood hesitating on the +threshold. 'You have met Mr. Grey before, I think?' + +'We first met at an anxious moment,' said Mr. Grey, smiling and shaking +hands with the boy 'A first interview with the Provost is always +formidable. I remember it too well myself. You did very well, I +remember, Mr. Elsmere. Well, Langham, I must be off. I shall be late for +my meeting as it is. I think we have settled our business. Good-night.' + +Langham stood a moment after the door closed, eyeing young Elsmere. +There was a curious struggle going on in the tutor's mind. + +'Elsmere,' he said at last abruptly, 'would you like to go to-night and +hear Grey preach?' + +'Preach!' exclaimed the lad. 'I thought he was a layman.' + +'So he is. It will be a lay sermon. It was always the custom here with +the clerical tutors to address their men once a term before Communion +Sunday, and some years ago, when Grey first became tutor, he determined, +though he was a layman, to carry on the practice. It was an +extraordinary effort, for he is a man to whom words on such a subject +are the coining of his heart's blood, and he has repeated it very +rarely. It is two years now since his last address.' + +'Of course I should like to go,' said Robert with eagerness. 'Is it +open?' + +'Strictly it is for his Greats pupils, but I can take you in. It is +hardly meant for freshmen; but--well, you are far enough on to make it +interesting to you.' + +'The lad will take to Grey's influence like a fish to water,' thought +the tutor to himself when he was alone, not without a strange +reluctance. 'Well, no one can say I have not given him his opportunity +to be "earnest."' + +The sarcasm of the last word was the kind of sarcasm which a man of his +type in an earlier generation might have applied to the 'earnestness' of +an Arnoldian Rugby. + +At eight o'clock that evening Robert found himself crossing the +quadrangle with Langham on the way to one of the larger lecture rooms, +which was to be the scene of the address. The room when they got in was +already nearly full, all the working fellows of the college were +present, and a body of some thirty men besides, most of them already far +on in their University career. A minute or two afterwards Mr. Grey +entered. The door opening on to the quadrangle, where the trees, +undeterred by east wind, were just bursting into leaf, was shut; and the +little assembly knelt, while Mr. Grey's voice with its broad intonation, +in which a strong native homeliness lingered under the gentleness of +accent, recited the collect 'Lord of all power and might,' a silent +pause following the last words. Then the audience settled itself, and +Mr. Grey, standing by a small deal table with the gaslight behind him, +began his address. + +All the main points of the experience which followed stamped themselves +on Robert's mind with extraordinary intensity. Nor did he ever lose the +memory of the outward scene. In after years, memory could always recall +to him at will the face and figure of the speaker, the massive head, the +deep eyes sunk under the brows, the Midland accent, the make of limb and +feature which seemed to have some suggestion in them of the rude +strength and simplicity of a peasant ancestry; and then the nobility, +the fire, the spiritual beauty flashing through it all! Here, indeed, +was a man on whom his fellows might lean, a man in whom the generation +of spiritual force was so strong and continuous that it overflowed of +necessity into the poorer, barrener lives around him, kindling and +enriching. Robert felt himself seized and penetrated, filled with a +fervour and an admiration which he was too young and immature to +analyse, but which was to be none the less potent and lasting. + +Much of the sermon itself, indeed, was beyond him. It was on the meaning +of St. Paul's great conception, 'Death unto sin and a new birth unto +righteousness.' What did the Apostle mean by a death to sin and self? +What were the precise ideas attached to the words 'risen with Christ'? +Are this death and this resurrection necessarily dependent upon certain +alleged historical events? Or are they not primarily, and were they not, +even in the mind of St. Paul, two aspects of a spiritual process +perpetually re-enacted in the soul of man, and constituting the +veritable revelation of God? Which is the stable and lasting witness of +the Father: the spiritual history of the individual and the world, or +the envelope of miracle to which hitherto mankind has attributed so much +importance? + +Mr. Grey's treatment of these questions was clothed, throughout a large +portion of the lecture, in metaphysical language, which no boy fresh +from school, however intellectually quick, could be expected to follow +with any precision. It was not, therefore, the argument, or the logical +structure of the sermon, which so profoundly affected young Elsmere. It +was the speaker himself, and the occasional passages in which, +addressing himself to the practical needs of his hearers, he put before +them the claims and conditions of the higher life with a pregnant +simplicity and rugged beauty of phrase. Conceit, selfishness, vice--how, +as he spoke of them, they seemed to wither from his presence! How the +'pitiful, earthy self' with its passions and its cravings sank into +nothingness beside the 'great ideas' and the 'great causes' for which, +as Christians and as men, he claimed their devotion. + +To the boy sitting among the crowd at the back of the room, his face +supported in his hands and his gleaming eyes fixed on the speaker, it +seemed as if all the poetry and history through which a restless +curiosity and ideality had carried him so far, took a new meaning from +this experience. It was by men like this that the moral progress of the +world had been shaped and inspired; he felt brought near to the great +primal forces breathing through the divine workshop; and in place of +natural disposition and reverent compliance, there sprang up in him +suddenly an actual burning certainty of belief. 'Axioms are not axioms,' +said poor Keats, 'till they have been proved upon our pulses;' and the +old familiar figure of the Divine combat, of the struggle in which man +and God are one, was proved once more upon a human pulse on that May +night, in the hush of that quiet lecture room. + +As the little moving crowd of men dispersed over the main quadrangle to +their respective staircases, Langham and Robert stood together a moment +in the windy darkness, lit by the occasional glimmering of a cloudy +moon. + +'Thank you, thank you, sir!' said the lad, eager and yet afraid to +speak, lest he should break the spell of memory. 'I should be sorry +indeed to have missed that!' + +'Yes, it was fine, extraordinarily fine, the best he has ever given, I +think. Good-night.' + +And Langham turned away, his head sunk on his breast, his hands behind +him. Robert went to his room conscious of a momentary check of feeling. +But it soon passed, and he sat up late, thinking of the sermon, or +pouring out in a letter to his mother the new hero-worship of which his +mind was full. + +A few days later, as it happened, came an invitation to the junior +exhibitioner to spend an evening at Mr. Grey's house. Elsmere went in a +state of curious eagerness and trepidation, and came away with a number +of fresh impressions which, when he had put them into order, did but +quicken his new-born sense of devotion. The quiet unpretending house +with its exquisite neatness and its abundance of books, the family +life, with the heart-happiness underneath, and the gentle trust and +courtesy on the surface, the little touches of austerity which betrayed +themselves here and there in the household ways--all these surroundings +stole into the lad's imagination, touched in him responsive fibres of +taste and feeling. + +But there was some surprise, too, mingled with the charm. He came, still +shaken, as it were, by the power of the sermon, expecting to see in the +preacher of it the outward and visible signs of a leadership which, as +he already knew, was a great force in Oxford life. His mood was that of +the disciple only eager to be enrolled. And what he found was a quiet, +friendly, host, surrounded by a group of men talking the ordinary +pleasant Oxford chit-chat--the river, the schools, the Union, the +football matches, and so on. Every now and then, as Elsmere stood at the +edge of the circle listening, the rugged face in the centre of it would +break into a smile, or some boyish speaker would elicit the low +spontaneous laugh in which there was such a sound of human fellowship, +such a genuine note of self-forgetfulness. Sometimes the conversation +strayed into politics, and then Mr. Grey, an eager politician, would +throw back his head, and talk with more sparkle and rapidity, flashing +occasionally into grim humour which seemed to throw light on the innate +strength and pugnacity of the peasant and Puritan breed from which he +sprang. Nothing could be more unlike the inspired philosopher, the +mystic surrounded by an adoring school, whom Robert had been picturing +to himself in his walk up to the house, through the soft May twilight. + +It was not long before the tutor had learned to take much kindly notice +of the ardent and yet modest exhibitioner, in whose future it was +impossible not to feel a sympathetic interest. + +'You will always find us on Sunday afternoons, before chapel,' he said +to him one day as they parted after watching a football match in the +damp mists of the Park, and the boy's flush of pleasure showed how much +he valued the permission. + +For three years those Sunday half-hours were the great charm of Robert +Elsmere's life. When he came to look back upon them, he could remember +nothing very definite. A few interesting scraps of talk about books; a +good deal of talk about politics, showing in the tutor a living interest +in the needs and training of that broadening democracy on which the +future of England rests; a few graphic sayings about individuals; above +all, a constant readiness on the host's part to listen, to sit quiet, +with the slight unconscious look of fatigue which was so eloquent of a +strenuous intellectual life, taking kindly heed of anything that +sincerity, even a stupid awkward sincerity, had got to say--these were +the sort of impressions they had left behind them, reinforced always, +indeed, by the one continuous impression of a great soul speaking with +difficulty and labour, but still clearly, still effectually, through an +unblemished series of noble acts and efforts. + +Term after term passed away. Mrs. Elsmere became more and more proud of +her boy, and more and more assured that her years of intelligent +devotion to him had won her his entire love and confidence, 'so long as +they both should live;' she came up to see him once or twice, making +Langham almost flee the University because she would be grateful to him +in public, and attending the boat-races in festive attire to which she +had devoted the most anxious attention for Robert's sake, and which made +her, dear, good, impracticable soul, the observed of all observers. When +she came she and Robert talked all day, so far as lectures allowed, and +most of the night, after their own eager, improvident fashion; and she +soon gathered, with that solemn, half-tragic sense of change which +besets a mother's heart at such a moment, that there were many new +forces at work in her boy's mind, deep under-currents of feeling, +stirred in him by the Oxford influences, which must before long rise +powerfully to the surface. + +He was passing from a bright buoyant lad into a man, and a man of ardour +and conviction. And the chief instrument in the transformation was Mr. +Grey. + +Elsmere got his first in Moderations easily. But the Final Schools were +a different matter. In the first days of his return to Oxford, in the +October of his third year, while he was still making up his lecture +list, and taking a general oversight of the work demanded from him, +before plunging definitely into it, he was oppressed with a sense that +the two years lying before him constituted a problem which would be +harder to solve than any which had yet been set him. It seemed to him in +a moment which was one of some slackness and reaction, that he had been +growing too fast. He had been making friends besides in far too many +camps, and the thought, half attractive, half repellent, of all those +midnight discussions over smouldering fires, which Oxford was preparing +for him, those fascinating moments of intellectual fence with minds as +eager and as crude as his own, and of all the delightful dipping into +the very latest literature, which such moments encouraged and involved, +seemed to convey a sort of warning to the boy's will that it was not +equal to the situation. He was neither dull enough nor great enough for +a striking Oxford success. How was he to prevent himself from attempting +impossibilities and achieving a final mediocrity? He felt a dismal +certainty that he should never be able to control the strayings of will +and curiosity, now into this path, now into that; and a still stronger +and genuine certainty that it is not by such digression that a man gets +up the Ethics or the Annals. + +Langham watched him with a half irritable attention. In spite of the +paralysis of all natural ambitions in himself, he was illogically keen +that Elsmere should win the distinctions of the place. He, the most +laborious, the most disinterested of scholars, turned himself almost +into a crammer for Elsmere's benefit. He abused the lad's multifarious +reading, declared it was no better than dram-drinking, and even preached +to him an ingenious variety of mechanical aids to memory and short cuts +to knowledge, till Robert would turn round upon him with some triumphant +retort drawn from his own utterances at some sincerer and less discreet +moment. In vain. Langham felt a dismal certainty before many weeks were +over that Elsmere would miss his first in Greats. He was too curious, +too restless, too passionate about many things. Above all he was +beginning, in the tutor's opinion, to concern himself disastrously early +with that most overwhelming and most brain-confusing of all human +interests--the interest of religion. Grey had made him 'earnest' with a +vengeance. + +Elsmere was now attending Grey's philosophical lectures, following them +with enthusiasm, and making use of them, as so often happens, for the +defence and fortification of views quite other than his teacher's. The +whole basis of Grey's thought was ardently idealist and Hegelian. He had +broken with the popular Christianity, but for him, God, consciousness, +duty, were the only realities. None of the various forms of materialist +thought escaped his challenge; no genuine utterance of the spiritual +life of man but was sure of his sympathy. It was known that after having +prepared himself for the Christian ministry he had remained a layman +because it had become impossible to him to accept miracle; and it was +evident that the commoner type of Churchmen regarded him as an +antagonist all the more dangerous because he was so sympathetic. But the +negative and critical side of him was what in reality told least upon +his pupils. He was reserved, he talked with difficulty, and his respect +for the immaturity of the young lives near him was complete. So that +what he sowed others often reaped, or to quote the expression of a +well-known rationalist about him: 'The Tories were always carrying off +his honey to their hive.' Elsmere, for instance, took in all that Grey +had to give, drank in all the ideal fervour, the spiritual enthusiasm of +the great tutor, and then, as Grey himself would have done some twenty +years earlier, carried his religious passion so stimulated into the +service of the great positive tradition around him. + +And at that particular moment in Oxford history, the passage from +philosophic idealism to glad acquiescence in the received Christian +system, was a peculiarly easy one. It was the most natural thing in the +world that a young man of Elsmere's temperament should rally to the +Church. The place was passing through one of those periodical crises of +reaction against an overdriven rationalism, which show themselves with +tolerable regularity in any great centre of intellectual activity. It +had begun to be recognised with a great burst of enthusiasm and +astonishment, that, after all, Mill and Herbert Spencer had not said +the last word on all things in heaven and earth. And now there was +exaggerated recoil. A fresh wave of religious romanticism was fast +gathering strength; the spirit of Newman had reappeared in the place +which Newman had loved and left; religion was becoming once more popular +among the most trivial souls, and a deep reality among a large +proportion of the nobler ones. + +With this movement of opinion Robert had very soon found himself in +close and sympathetic contact. The meagre impression left upon his +boyhood by the somewhat grotesque succession of the Harden curates, and +by his mothers shafts of wit at their expense, was soon driven out of +him by the stateliness and comely beauty of the Church order as it was +revealed to him at Oxford. The religious air, the solemn beauty of the +place itself, its innumerable associations with an organised and +venerable faith, the great public functions and expressions of that +faith, possessed the boy's imagination more and more. As he sat in the +undergraduates' gallery at St. Mary's on the Sundays, when the great +High Church preacher of the moment occupied the pulpit, and looked down +on the crowded building, full of grave black-gowned figures, and framed +in one continuous belt of closely packed boyish faces; as he listened to +the preacher's vibrating voice, rising and falling with the orator's +instinct for musical effect; or as he stood up with the great +surrounding body of undergraduates to send the melody of some Latin hymn +rolling into the far recesses of the choir, the sight and the experience +touched his inmost feeling, and satisfied all the poetical and dramatic +instincts of a passionate nature. The system behind the sight took +stronger and stronger hold upon him; he began to wish ardently and +continuously to become a part of it, to cast in his lot definitely with +it. + +One May evening he was wandering by himself along the towing-path which +skirts the upper river, a prey to many thoughts, to forebodings about +the schools which were to begin in three weeks, and to speculations as +to how his mother would take the news of the second class, which he +himself felt to be inevitable. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, there +flashed into his mind the little conversation with his mother, which had +taken place nearly four years before, in the garden at Trinity. He +remembered the antagonism which the idea of a clerical life for him had +raised in both of them, and a smile at his own ignorance and his +mother's prejudice passed over his quick young face. He sat down on the +grassy bank, a mass of reeds at his feet, the shadows of the poplars +behind him lying across the still river; and opposite, the wide green +expanse of the great town-meadow, dotted with white patches of geese and +herds of grazing horses. There, with a sense of something solemn and +critical passing over him, he began to dream out his future life. + +And when he rose half an hour afterwards, and turned his steps +homewards, he knew with an inward tremor of heart that the next great +step of the way was practically taken. For there by the gliding river, +and in view of the distant Oxford spires, which his fancy took to +witness the act, he had vowed himself in prayer and self-abasement to +the ministry of the Church. + +During the three weeks that followed he made some frantic efforts to +make up lost ground. He had not been idle for a single day, but he had +been unwise, an intellectual spendthrift, living in a continuous +succession of enthusiasms, and now at the critical moment his stock of +nerve and energy was at a low ebb. He went in depressed and tired, his +friends watching anxiously for the result. On the day of the Logic +paper, as he emerged into the Schools quadrangle, he felt his arm caught +by Mr. Grey. + +'Come with me for a walk, Elsmere; you look as if some air would do you +good.' + +Robert acquiesced, and the two men turned into the passage way leading +out on to Radcliffe Square. + +'I have done for myself, sir,' said the youth with a sigh, half +impatience, half depression. 'It seems to me to-day that I had neither +mind nor memory. If I get a second I shall be lucky.' + +'Oh, you will get your second whatever happens,' said Mr. Grey quietly, +'and you mustn't be too much cast down about it if you don't get your +first.' + +This implied acceptance of his partial defeat, coming from another's +lips, struck the excitable Robert like a lash. It was only what he had +been saying to himself, but in the most pessimist forecasts we make for +ourselves, there is always an under protest of hope. + +'I have been wasting my time here lately,' he said, hurriedly raising +his college cap from his brows as if it oppressed them, and pushing his +hair back with a weary restless gesture. + +'No,' said Mr. Grey, turning his kind frank eyes upon him. 'As far as +general training goes, you have not wasted your time at all. There are +many clever men who don't get a first class, and yet it is good for them +to be here--so long as they are not loungers and idlers, of course. And +you have not been a lounger; you have been headstrong, and a little +over-confident, perhaps,'--the speaker's smile took all the sting out +of the words--'but you have grown into a man, and you are fit now for +man's work. Don't let yourself be depressed, Elsmere. You will do better +in life than you have done in examination.' + +The young man was deeply touched. This tone of personal comment and +admonition was very rare with Mr. Grey. He felt a sudden consciousness +of a shared burden which was infinitely soothing, and though he made no +answer, his face lost something of its harassed look as the two walked +on together down Oriel Street and into Merton Meadows. + +'Have you any immediate plans?' said Mr. Grey, as they turned into the +Broad Walk, now in the full leafage of June, and rustling under a brisk +western wind blowing from the river. + +'No; at least I suppose it will be no good my trying for a fellowship. +But I meant to tell you, sir, of one thing--I have made up my mind to +take orders.' + +'You have? When?' + +'Quite lately. So that fixes me, I suppose, to come back for divinity +lectures in the autumn.' + +Mr. Grey said nothing for a while, and they strolled in and out of the +great shadows thrown by the elms across their path. + +'You feel no difficulties in the way?' he asked at last, with a certain +quick brusqueness of manner. + +'No,' said Robert eagerly. 'I never had any. Perhaps,' he added, with a +sudden humility, 'it is because I have never gone deep enough. What I +believe might have been worth more if I had had more struggle; but it +has all seemed so plain.' + +The young voice speaking with hesitation and reserve, and yet with a +deep inner conviction, was pleasant to hear. Mr. Grey turned towards it, +and the great eyes under the furrowed brow had a peculiar gentleness of +expression. + +'You will probably be very happy in the life,' he said. 'The Church +wants men of your sort.' + +But through all the sympathy of the tone Robert was conscious of a veil +between them. He knew, of course, pretty much what it was, and with a +sudden impulse he felt that he would have given worlds to break through +it and talk frankly with this man whom he revered beyond all others, +wide as was the intellectual difference between them. But the tutor's +reticence and the younger man's respect prevented it. + +When the unlucky second class was actually proclaimed to the world, +Langham took it to heart perhaps more than either Elsmere or his mother. +No one knew better than he what Elsmere's gifts were. It was absurd that +he should not have made more of them in sight of the public. '_Le +clericalisme, voila l'ennemi!_' was about the gist of Langham's mood +during the days that followed on the class list. + +Elsmere, however, did not divulge his intention of taking orders to him +till ten days afterwards, when he had carried off Langham to stay at +Harden, and he and his old tutor were smoking in his mother's little +garden one moonlit night. + +When he had finished his statement Langham stood still a moment watching +the wreaths of smoke as they curled and vanished. The curious interest +in Elsmere's career, which during a certain number of months had made +him almost practical, almost energetic, had disappeared. He was his own +languid, paradoxical self. + +'Well, after all,' he said at last, very slowly, 'the difficulty lies in +preaching anything. One may as well preach a respectable mythology as +anything else.' + +'What do you mean by a mythology?' cried Robert hotly. + +'Simply ideas, or experiences, personified,' said Langham, puffing away. +'I take it they are the subject-matter of all theologies.' + +'I don't understand you,' said Robert, flushing. 'To the Christian, +facts have been the medium by which ideas the world could not otherwise +have come at have been communicated to man. Christian theology is a +system of ideas indeed, but of ideas realised, made manifest in facts.' + +Langham looked at him for a moment, undecided; then that suppressed +irritation we have already spoken of broke through. 'How do you know +they are facts?' he said drily. + +The younger man took up the challenge with all his natural eagerness, +and the conversation resolved itself into a discussion of Christian +evidences. Or rather Robert held forth, and Langham kept him going by an +occasional remark which acted like the prick of a spur. The tutor's +psychological curiosity was soon satisfied. He declared to himself that +the intellect had precious little to do with Elsmere's Christianity. He +had got hold of all the stock apologetic arguments, and used them, his +companion admitted, with ability and ingenuity. But they were merely the +outworks of the citadel. The inmost fortress was held by something +wholly distinct from intellectual conviction--by moral passion, by love, +by feeling, by that mysticism, in short, which no healthy youth should +be without. + +'He imagines he has satisfied his intellect,' was the inward comment of +one of the most melancholy of sceptics, 'and he has never so much as +exerted it. What a brute I am to protest!' + +And suddenly Langham threw up the sponge. He held out his hand to his +companion, a momentary gleam of tenderness in his black eyes, such as on +one or two critical occasions before had disarmed the impetuous Elsmere. + +'No use to discuss it further. You have a strong case, of course, and +you have put it well. Only, when you are pegging away at reforming and +enlightening the world, don't trample too much on the people who have +more than enough to do to enlighten themselves.' + +As to Mrs. Elsmere, in this new turn of her son's fortunes, she realised +with humorous distinctness that for some years past Robert had been +educating her as well as himself. Her old rebellious sense of something +inherently absurd in the clerical status had been gradually slain in her +by her long contact through him with the finer and more imposing aspects +of church life. She was still on light skirmishing terms with the Harden +curates, and at times she would flame out into the wildest, wittiest +threats and gibes, for the momentary satisfaction of her own essentially +lay instincts; but at bottom she knew perfectly well that, when the +moment came, no mother could be more loyal, more easily imposed upon, +than she would be. + +'I suppose, then, Robert, we shall be back at Murewell before very +long,' she said to him one morning abruptly, studying him the while out +of her small twinkling eyes. What dignity there was already in the young +lightly-built frame! what frankness and character in the irregular, +attractive face! + +'Mother,' cried Elsmere indignantly, 'what do you take me for? Do you +imagine I am going to bury myself in the country at five or +six-and-twenty, take six hundred a year, and nothing to do for it? That +would be a deserter's act indeed.' + +Mrs. Elsmere shrugged her shoulders. 'Oh, I supposed you would insist on +killing yourself, to begin with. To most people nowadays that seems to +be the necessary preliminary of a useful career.' + +Robert laughed and kissed her, but her question had stirred him so much +that he sat down that very evening to write to his cousin Mowbray +Elsmere. He announced to him that he was about to read for orders, and +that at the same time he relinquished all claim on the living of +Murewell. 'Do what you like with it when it falls vacant,' he wrote, +'without reference to me. My views are strong that before a clergyman in +health and strength, and in no immediate want of money, allows himself +the luxury of a country parish, he is bound, for some years at any rate, +to meet the challenge of evil and poverty where the fight is +hardest--among our English town population.' + +Sir Mowbray Elsmere replied curtly in a day or two to the effect that +Robert's letter seemed to him superfluous. He, Sir Mowbray, had nothing +to do with his cousin's views. When the living was vacant--the present +holder, however, was uncommon tough and did not mean dying--he should +follow out the instructions of his father's will, and if Robert did not +want the thing he could say so. + +In the autumn Robert and his mother went back to Oxford. The following +spring he redeemed his Oxford reputation completely by winning a +Fellowship at Merton after a brilliant fight with some of the best men +of his year, and in June he was ordained. + +In the summer term some teaching work was offered him at Merton, and by +Mr. Grey's advice he accepted it, thus postponing for a while that +London curacy and that stout grapple with human need at its sorest for +which his soul was pining. 'Stay here a year or two,' Grey said bluntly; +'you are at the beginning of your best learning time, and you are not +one of the natures who can do without books. You will be all the better +worth having afterwards, and there is no lack of work here for a man's +moral energies.' + +Langham took the same line, and Elsmere submitted. Three happy and +fruitful years followed. The young lecturer developed an amazing power +of work. That concentration which he had been unable to achieve for +himself his will was strong enough to maintain when it was a question of +meeting the demands of a college class in which he was deeply +interested. He became a stimulating and successful teacher, and one of +the most popular of men. His passionate sense of responsibility towards +his pupils made him load himself with burdens to which he was constantly +physically unequal, and fill the vacations almost as full as the terms. +And as he was comparatively a man of means, his generous impetuous +temper was able to gratify itself in ways that would have been +impossible to others. The story of his summer reading parties, for +instance, if one could have unravelled it, would have been found to be +one long string of acts of kindness towards men poorer and duller than +himself. + +At the same time he formed close and eager relations with the heads of +the religious party in Oxford. His mother's Evangelical training of him +and Mr. Grey's influence, together, perhaps, with certain drifts of +temperament, prevented him from becoming a High Churchman. The +sacramental, ceremonial view of the Church never took hold upon him. But +to the English Church as a great national institution for the promotion +of God's work on earth no one could have been more deeply loyal, and +none coming close to him could mistake the fervour and passion of his +Christian feeling. At the same time he did not know what rancour or +bitterness meant, so that men of all shades of Christian belief reckoned +a friend in him, and he went through life surrounded by an unusual, +perhaps a dangerous amount of liking and affection. He threw himself +ardently into the charitable work of Oxford, now helping a High Church +vicar, and now toiling with Grey and one or two other Liberal fellows, +at the maintenance of a coffee-palace and lecture-room just started by +them in one of the suburbs; while in the second year of his lectureship +the success of some first attempts at preaching fixed the attention of +the religious leaders upon him as upon a man certain to make his mark. + +So the three years passed--years not, perhaps, of great intellectual +advance, for other forces in him than those of the intellect were mainly +to the fore, but years certainly of continuous growth in character and +moral experience. And at the end of them Mowbray Elsmere made his offer, +and it was accepted. + +The secret of it, of course, was overwork. Mrs. Elsmere, from the little +house in Merton Street, where she had established herself, had watched +her boy's meteoric career through these crowded months with very +frequent misgivings. No one knew better than she that Robert was +constitutionally not of the toughest fibre, and she realised long before +he did that the Oxford life as he was bent on leading it must end for +him in premature breakdown. But, as always happens, neither her +remonstrances, nor Mr. Grey's common-sense, nor Langham's fidgety +protests had any effect on the young enthusiast to whom self-slaughter +came so easy. During the latter half of his third year of teaching he +was continually being sent away by the doctors, and coming back only to +break down again. At last, in the January of his fourth year, the +collapse became so decided that he consented, bribed by the prospect of +the Holy Land, to go away for three months to Egypt and the East, +accompanied by his mother and a college friend. + +Just before their departure news reached him of the death of the rector +of Murewell, followed by a formal offer of the living from Sir Mowbray. +At the moment when the letter arrived he was feeling desperately tired +and ill, and in after-life he never forgot the half-superstitious thrill +and deep sense of depression with which he received it. For within him +was a slowly-emerging, despairing conviction that he was indeed +physically unequal to the claims of his Oxford work, and if so, still +more unequal to grappling with the hardest pastoral labour and the worst +forms of English poverty. And the coincidence of the Murewell +incumbent's death struck his sensitive mind as a Divine leading. + +But it was a painful defeat. He took the letter to Grey, and Grey +strongly advised him to accept. + +'You overdrive your scruples, Elsmere,' said the Liberal tutor with +emphasis. 'No one can say a living with 1200 souls, and no curate, is a +sinecure. As for hard town work, it is absurd--you couldn't stand it. +And after all, I imagine, there are some souls worth saving out of the +towns.' + +Elsmere pointed out vindictively that family livings were a corrupt and +indefensible institution. Mr. Grey replied calmly that they probably +were, but that the fact did not affect, so far as he could see, +Elsmere's competence to fulfil all the duties of rector of Murewell. + +'After all, my dear fellow,' he said, a smile breaking over his strong +expressive face, 'it is well even for reformers to be sane.' + +Mrs. Elsmere was passive. It seemed to her that she had foreseen it all +along. She was miserable about his health, but she too had a moment of +superstition, and would not urge him. Murewell was no name of happy omen +to her--she had passed the darkest hours of her life there. + +In the end Robert asked for delay, which was grudgingly granted him. +Then he and his mother and friend fled over seas: he feverishly +determined to get well and cheat the fates. But, after a halcyon time in +Palestine and Constantinople, a whiff of poisoned air at Cannes, on +their way home, acting on a low constitutional state, settled matters. +Robert was laid up for weeks with malarious fever, and when he struggled +out again into the hot Riviera sunshine it was clear to himself and +everybody else that he must do what he could, and not what he would, in +the Christian vineyard. + +'Mother,' he said one day, suddenly looking up at her as she sat near +him working, 'can _you_ be happy at Murewell?' + +There was a wistfulness in the long thin face, and a pathetic accent of +surrender in the voice, which hurt the mother's heart. + +'I can be happy wherever you are,' she said, laying her brown nervous +hand on his blanched one. + +'Then give me pen and paper and let me write to Mowbray. I wonder +whether the place has changed at all. Heigh ho! How is one to preach to +people who have stuffed you up with gooseberries, or swung you on gates, +or lifted you over puddles to save your petticoats? I wonder what has +become of that boy whom I hit in the eye with my bow and arrow, or of +that other lout who pummelled me into the middle of next week for +disturbing his bird-trap? By the way, is the Squire--is Roger +Wendover--living at the Hall now?' + +He turned to his mother with a sudden start of interest. + +'So I hear,' said Mrs. Elsmere drily. '_He_ won't be much good to you.' + +He sat on meditating while she went for pen and paper. He had forgotten +the Squire of Murewell. But Roger Wendover, the famous and eccentric +owner of Murewell Hall, hermit and scholar, possessed of one of the most +magnificent libraries in England, and author of books which had carried +a revolutionary shock into the heart of English society, was not a +figure to be overlooked by any rector of Murewell, least of all by one +possessed of Robert's culture and imagination. + +The young man ransacked his memory on the subject with a sudden access +of interest in his new home that was to be. + +Six weeks later they were in England, and Robert, now convalescent, had +accepted an invitation to spend a month in Long Whindale with his +mother's cousins, the Thornburghs, who offered him quiet, and bracing +air. He was to enter on his duties at Murewell in July, the bishop, who +had been made aware of his Oxford reputation, welcoming the new recruit +to the diocese with marked warmth of manner. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +'Agnes, if you want any tea, here it is,' cried Rose, calling from +outside through the dining-room window; 'and tell mamma.' + +It was the first of June, and the spell of warmth in which Robert +Elsmere had arrived was still maintaining itself. An intelligent +foreigner dropped into the flower-sprinkled valley might have believed +that, after all, England, and even Northern England, had a summer. Early +in the season as it was, the sun was already drawing the colour out of +the hills; the young green, hardly a week or two old, was darkening. +Except the oaks. They were brilliance itself against the luminous +gray-blue sky. So were the beeches, their young downy leaves just +unpacked, tumbling loosely open to the light. But the larches and the +birches and the hawthorns were already sobered by a longer acquaintance +with life and Phoebus. + +Rose sat fanning herself with a portentous hat, which when in its proper +place served her, apparently, both as hat and as parasol. She seemed to +have been running races with a fine collie, who lay at her feet panting, +but studying her with his bright eyes, and evidently ready to be off +again at the first indication that his playmate had recovered her wind. +Chattie was coming lazily over the lawn, stretching each leg behind her +as she walked, tail arched, green eyes flaming in the sun, a model of +treacherous beauty. + +'Chattie, you fiend, come here!' cried Rose, holding out a hand to her; +'if Miss Barks were ever pretty she must have looked like you at this +moment.' + +'I won't have Chattie put upon,' said Agnes, establishing herself at the +other side of the little tea-table; 'she has done you no harm. Come to +me, beastie. _I_ won't compare you to disagreeable old maids.' + +The cat looked from one sister to the other, blinking; then with a +sudden magnificent spring leaped on to Agnes's lap and curled herself up +there. + +'Nothing but cupboard love,' said Rose scornfully, in answer to Agnes's +laugh; 'she knows you will give her bread and butter and I won't, out of +a double regard for my skirts and her morals. Oh, dear me! Miss Barks +was quite seraphic last night; she never made a single remark about my +clothes, and she didn't even say to me as she generally does, with an +air of compassion, that she "_quite_ understands how hard it must be to +keep in tune."' + +'The amusing thing was Mrs. Seaton and Mr. Elsmere,' said Agnes. 'I just +love, as Mrs. Thornburgh says, to hear her instructing other people in +their own particular trades. She didn't get much change out of him.' + +Rose gave Agnes her tea, and then, bending forward, with one hand on her +heart, said in a stage whisper, with a dramatic glance round the garden, +'My heart is whole. How is yours?' + +'_Intact_,' said Agnes calmly, 'as that French bric-a-brac man in the +Brompton Road used to say of his pots. But he is very nice.' + +'Oh, charming! But when my destiny arrives'--and Rose, returning to her +tea, swept her little hand with a teaspoon in it eloquently round--'he +won't have his hair cut close. I must have luxuriant locks, and I will +take _no_ excuse! _Une chevelure de poete_, the eye of an eagle, the +moustache of a hero, the hand of a Rubinstein, and, if it pleases him, +the temper of a fiend. He will be odious, insufferable for all the world +besides, except for me; and for me he will be heaven.' + +She threw herself back, a twinkle in her bright eye, but a little flush +of something half real on her cheek. + +'No doubt,' said Agnes drily. 'But you can't wonder if under the +circumstances I don't pine for a brother-in-law. To return to the +subject, however, Catherine liked him. She said so.' + +'Oh, that doesn't count,' replied Rose discontentedly; 'Catherine likes +everybody--of a certain sort--and everybody likes Catherine.' + +'Does that mean, Miss Hasty,' said her sister, 'that you have made up +your mind Catherine will never marry?' + +'Marry!' cried Rose. 'You might as well talk of marrying Westminster +Abbey.' + +Agnes looked at her attentively. Rose's fun had a decided lack of +sweetness. 'After all,' she said demurely, 'St. Elizabeth married.' + +'Yes, but then she was a princess. Reasons of State. If Catherine were +"her Royal Highness" it would be her duty to marry, which would just +make _all_ the difference. Duty! I hate the word.' + +And Rose took up a fir-cone lying near and threw it at the nose of the +collie, who made a jump at it, and then resumed an attitude of blinking +and dignified protest against his mistress's follies. + +Agnes again studied her sister. 'What's the matter with you, Rose?' + +'The usual thing, my dear,' replied Rose curtly, 'only more so. I had a +letter this morning from Carry Ford--the daughter, you know, of those +nice people I stayed in Manchester with last year. Well, she wants me to +go and stay the winter with them and study under a first-rate man, +Franzen, who is to be in Manchester two days a week during the winter. I +haven't said a word about it--what's the use? I know all Catherine's +arguments by heart. Manchester is not Whindale, and papa wished us to +live in Whindale; I am not somebody else and needn't earn my bread; and +art is not religion; and----' + +'Wheels!' exclaimed Agnes. 'Catherine, I suppose, home from +Whinborough.' + +Rose got up and peered through the rhododendron bushes at the top of the +wall which shut them off from the road. + +'Catherine, and an unknown. Catherine driving at a foot's pace, and the +unknown walking beside her. Oh, I see, of course--Mr. Elsmere. He will +come in to tea, so I'll go for a cup. It is his duty to call on us +to-day.' + +When Rose came back in the wake of her mother, Catherine and Robert +Elsmere were coming up the drive. Something had given Catherine more +colour than usual, and as Mrs. Leyburn shook hands with the young +clergyman her mother's eyes turned approvingly to her eldest daughter. +'After all, she is as handsome as Rose,' she said to herself--'though it +_is_ quite a different style.' + +Rose, who was always tea-maker, dispensed her wares; Catherine took her +favourite low seat beside her mother, clasping Mrs. Leyburn's thin +mittened hand awhile tenderly in her own; Robert and Agnes set up a +lively gossip on the subject of the Thornburghs' guests, in which Rose +joined, while Catherine looked smiling on. She seemed apart from the +rest, Robert thought; not, clearly, by her own will, but by virtue of a +difference of temperament which could not but make itself felt. Yet once +as Rose passed her, Robert saw her stretch out her hand and touch her +sister caressingly, with a bright upward look and smile as though she +would say, 'Is all well? have you had a good time this afternoon, +Roeschen?' Clearly the strong contemplative nature was not strong enough +to dispense with any of the little wants and cravings of human +affection. Compared to the main impression she was making on him, her +suppliant attitude at her mother's feet and her caress of her sister +were like flowers breaking through the stern March soil and changing the +whole spirit of the fields. + +Presently he said something of Oxford, and mentioned Merton. Instantly +Mrs. Leyburn fell upon him. Had he ever seen Mr. S---- who had been a +Fellow there, and Rose's godfather? + +'I don't acknowledge him,' said Rose, pouting. 'Other people's +godfathers give them mugs and corals. Mine never gave me anything but a +Concordance.' + +Robert laughed, and proved to their satisfaction that Mr. S---- had been +extinct before his day. But could they ask him any other questions? Mrs. +Leyburn became quite animated, and, diving into her memory, produced a +number of fragmentary reminiscences of her husband's Queen's friends, +asking him for information about each and all of them. The young man +disentangled all her questions, racked his brains to answer, and showed +all through a quick friendliness, a charming deference as of youth to +age, which confirmed the liking of the whole party for him. Then the +mention of an associate of Richard Leyburn's youth, who had been one of +the Tractarian leaders, led him into talk of Oxford changes and the +influences of the present. He drew for them the famous High Church +preacher of the moment, described the great spectacle of his Bampton +Lectures, by which Oxford had been recently thrilled, and gave a +dramatic account of a sermon on evolution preached by the hermit-veteran +Pusey, as though by another Elias returning to the world to deliver a +last warning message to men. Catherine listened absorbed, her deep eyes +fixed upon him. And though all he said was pitched in a vivacious +narrative key and addressed as much to the others as to her, inwardly it +seemed to him that his one object all through was to touch and keep her +attention. + +Then, in answer to inquiries about himself, he fell to describing St. +Anselm's with enthusiasm,--its growth, its Provost, its effectiveness as +a great educational machine, the impression it had made on Oxford and +the country. This led him naturally to talk of Mr. Grey, then, next to +the Provost, the most prominent figure in the college; and once +embarked on this theme he became more eloquent and interesting than +ever. The circle of women listened to him as to a voice from the large +world. He made them feel the beat of the great currents of English life +and thought; he seemed to bring the stir and rush of our central English +society into the deep quiet of their valley. Even the bright-haired +Rose, idly swinging her pretty foot, with a head full of dreams and +discontent, was beguiled, and for the moment seemed to lose her restless +self in listening. + +He told an exciting story of a bad election riot in Oxford which had +been quelled at considerable personal risk by Mr. Grey, who had gained +his influence in the town by a devotion of years to the policy of +breaking down as far as possible the old venomous feud between city and +university. + +When he paused, Mrs. Leyburn said, vaguely, 'Did you say he was a canon +of somewhere?' + +'Oh no,' said Robert, smiling, 'he is not a clergyman.' + +'But you said he preached,' said Agnes. + +'Yes--but lay sermons--addresses. He is not one of us even, according to +your standard and mine.' + +'A Nonconformist?' sighed Mrs. Leyburn. 'Oh, I know they have let in +everybody now.' + +'Well, if you like,' said Robert. 'What I meant was that his opinions +are not orthodox. He could not be a clergyman, but he is one of the +noblest of men!' + +He spoke with affectionate warmth. Then suddenly Catherine's eyes met +his, and he felt an involuntary start. A veil had fallen over them; her +sweet moved sympathy was gone; she seemed to have shrunk into herself. + +She turned to Mrs. Leyburn. 'Mother, do you know, I have all sorts of +messages from Aunt Ellen'--and in an under-voice she began to give Mrs. +Leyburn the news of her afternoon expedition. + +Rose and Agnes soon plunged young Elsmere into another stream of talk. +But he kept his feeling of perplexity. His experience of other women +seemed to give him nothing to go upon with regard to Miss Leyburn. + +Presently Catherine got up and drew her plain little black cape round +her again. + +'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs. Leyburn. 'Where are you off to now?' + +'To the Backhouses, mother,' she said in a low voice; 'I have not been +there for two days. I must go this evening.' + +Mrs. Leyburn said no more. Catherine's 'musts' were never disputed. She +moved towards Elsmere with outstretched hand. But he also sprang up. + +'I, too, must be going,' he said; 'I have paid you an unconscionable +visit. If you are going past the vicarage, Miss Leyburn, may I escort +you so far?' + +She stood quietly waiting while he made his farewells. Agnes, whose eye +fell on her sister during the pause, was struck with a passing sense of +something out of the common. She could hardly have defined her +impression, but Catherine seemed more alive to the outer world, more +like other people, less nun-like, than usual. + +When they had left the garden together, as they had come into it, and +Mrs. Leyburn, complaining of chilliness, had retreated to the +drawing-room, Rose laid a quick hand on her sister's arm. + +'You say Catherine likes him? Owl! what is a great deal more certain is +that he likes her.' + +'Well,' said Agnes calmly,--'well, I await your remarks.' + +'Poor fellow! said Rose grimly, and removed her hand. + +Meanwhile Elsmere and Catherine walked along the valley road towards the +Vicarage. He thought, uneasily, she was a little more reserved with him +than she had been in those pleasant moments after he had overtaken her +in the pony-carriage; but still she was always kind, always courteous. +And what a white hand it was, hanging ungloved against her dress! what a +beautiful dignity and freedom, as of mountain winds and mountain +streams, in every movement! + +'You are bound for High Ghyll?' he said to her as they neared the +vicarage gate. Is it not a long way for you? You have been at a meeting +already, your sister said, and teaching this morning!' + +He looked down on her with a charming diffidence as though aware that +their acquaintance was very young, and yet with a warm eagerness of +feeling piercing through. As she paused under his eye the slightest +flush rose to Catherine's cheek. Then she looked up with a smile. It was +amusing to be taken care of by this tall stranger! + +'It is most unfeminine, I am afraid,' she said, 'but I couldn't be tired +if I tried.' + +Elsmere grasped her hand. + +'You make me feel myself more than ever a shocking example,' he said, +letting it go with a little sigh. The smart of his own renunciation was +still keen in him. She lingered a moment, could find nothing to say, +threw him a look all shy sympathy and lovely pity, and was gone. + +In the evening Robert got an explanation of that sudden stiffening in +his auditor of the afternoon, which had perplexed him. He and the vicar +were sitting smoking in the study after dinner, and the ingenious young +man managed to shift the conversation on to the Leyburns, as he had +managed to shift it once or twice before that day, flattering himself, +of course, on each occasion that his manoeuvres were beyond detection. +The vicar, good soul, by virtue of his original discovery, detected them +all, and with a sense of appropriation in the matter, not at all unmixed +with a sense of triumph over Mrs. T., kept the ball rolling merrily. + +'Miss Leyburn seems to have very strong religious views,' said Robert, +_a propos_ of some remark of the vicar's as to the assistance she was to +him in the school. + +'Ah, she is her father's daughter,' said the vicar genially. He had his +oldest coat on, his favourite pipe between his lips, and a bit of +domestic carpentering on his knee at which he was fiddling away; and, +being perfectly happy, was also perfectly amiable. 'Richard Leyburn was +a fanatic--as mild as you please, but immovable.' + +'What line?' + +'Evangelical, with a dash of Quakerism. He lent me Madame Guyon's Life +once to read. I didn't appreciate it. I told him that for all her +religion she seemed to me to have a deal of the vixen in her. He could +hardly get over it: it nearly broke our friendship. But I suppose he was +very like her, except that, in my opinion, his nature was sweeter. He +was a fatalist--saw leadings of Providence in every little thing. And +such a dreamer! When he came to live up here just before his death, and +all his active life was taken off him, I believe half his time he was +seeing visions. He used to wander over the fells and meet you with a +start, as though you belonged to another world than the one he was +walking in.' + +'And his eldest daughter was much with him?' + +'The apple of his eye. She understood him. He could talk his soul out to +her. The others, of course, were children; and his wife--well, his wife +was just what you see her now, poor thing. He must have married her when +she was very young and very pretty. She was a squire's daughter +somewhere near the school of which he was master--a good family, I +believe--she'll tell you so, in a ladylike way. He was always fidgety +about her health. He loved her, I suppose, or had loved her. But it was +Catherine who had his mind; Catherine who was his friend. She adored +him. I believe there was always a sort of pity in her heart for him too. +But at any rate he made her and trained her. He poured all his ideas and +convictions into her.' + +'Which were strong?' + +'Uncommonly. For all his gentle, ethereal look, you could neither bend +nor break him. I don't believe anybody but Richard Leyburn could have +gone through Oxford at the height of the Oxford Movement, and, so to +speak, have known nothing about it, while living all the time for +religion. He had a great deal in common with the Quakers, as I said; a +great deal in common with the Wesleyans; but he was very loyal to the +Church all the same. He regarded it as the golden mean. George Herbert +was his favourite poet. He used to carry his poems about with him on the +mountains, and an expurgated _Christian Year_--the only thing he ever +took from the High Churchmen--which he had made for himself, and which +he and Catherine knew by heart. In some ways he was not a bigot at all. +He would have had the Church make peace with the Dissenters; he was all +for upsetting tests so far as Nonconformity was concerned. But he drew +the most rigid line between belief and unbelief. He would not have dined +at the same table with a Unitarian if he could have helped it. I +remember a furious article of his in the _Record_ against admitting +Unitarians to the Universities or allowing them to sit in Parliament. +England is a Christian State, he said; they are not Christians; they +have no right in her except on sufferance. Well, I suppose he was about +right,' said the vicar with a sigh. 'We are all so half-hearted +nowadays.' + +'Not he,' cried Robert hotly. 'Who are we that because a man differs +from us in opinion we are to shut him out from the education of +political and civil duty? But never mind, Cousin William. Go on.' + +'There's no more that I remember, except that of course Catherine took +all these ideas from him. He wouldn't let his children know any +unbeliever, however apparently worthy and good. He impressed it upon +them as their special sacred duty, in a time of wicked enmity to +religion, to cherish the faith and the whole faith. He wished his wife +and daughters to live on here after his death that they might be less in +danger spiritually than in the big world, and that they might have more +opportunity of living the old-fashioned Christian life. There was also +some mystical idea, I think, of making up through his children for the +godless lives of their forefathers. He used to reproach himself for +having in his prosperous days neglected his family, some of whom he +might have helped to raise.' + +'Well, but,' said Robert, 'all very well for Miss Leyburn, but I don't +see the father in the two younger girls.' + +'Ah, there is Catherine's difficulty,' said the vicar, shrugging his +shoulders. 'Poor thing! How well I remember her after her father's +death! She came down to see me in the dining-room about some arrangement +for the funeral. She was only sixteen, so pale and thin with nursing. I +said something about the comfort she had been to her father. She took my +hand and burst into tears. "He was so good!" she said; "I loved him so! +Oh, Mr. Thornburgh, help me to look after the others!" And that's been +her one thought since then--that, next to following the narrow road.' + +The vicar had begun to speak with emotion, as generally happened to him +whenever he was beguiled into much speech about Catherine Leyburn. There +must have been something great somewhere in the insignificant elderly +man. A meaner soul might so easily have been jealous of this girl with +her inconveniently high standards, and her influence, surpassing his +own, in his own domain. + +'I should like to know the secret of the little musician's +independence,' said Robert, musing. 'There might be no tie of blood at +all between her and the elder, so far as I can see.' + +'Oh, I don't know that! There's more than you think, or Catherine +wouldn't have kept her hold over her so far as she has. Generally she +gets her way, except about the music. There Rose sticks to it.' + +'And why shouldn't she?' + +'Ah, well, you see, my dear fellow, I am old enough, and you're not, to +remember what people in the old days used to think about art. Of course +nowadays we all say very fine things about it; but Richard Leyburn would +no more have admitted that a girl who hadn't got her own bread or her +family's to earn by it was justified in spending her time in fiddling +than he would have approved of her spending it in dancing. I have heard +him take a text out of the _Imitation_ and lecture Rose when she was +quite a baby for pestering any stray person she could get hold of to +give her music-lessons. "Woe to them"--yes, that was it--"that inquire +many curious things of men, and care little about the way of serving +me." However, he wasn't consistent. Nobody is. It was actually he that +brought Rose her first violin from London in a green baize bag. Mrs. +Leyburn took me in one night to see her asleep with it on her pillow, +and all her pretty curls lying over the strings. I daresay, poor man, it +was one of the acts towards his children that tormented his mind in his +last hour.' + +'She has certainly had her way about practising it: she plays superbly.' + +'Oh yes, she has had her way. She is a queer mixture, is Rose. I see a +touch of the old Leyburn recklessness in her; and then there is the +beauty and refinement of her mother's side of the family. Lately she has +got quite out of hand. She went to stay with some relations they have in +Manchester, got drawn into the musical set there, took to these funny +gowns, and now she and Catherine are always half at war. Poor Catherine +said to me the other day, with tears in her eyes, that she knew Rose +thought her as hard as iron. "But what can I do?" she said. "I promised +papa." She makes herself miserable, and it's no use. I wish the little +wild thing would get herself well married. She's not meant for this +humdrum place, and she may kick over the traces.' + +'She's pretty enough for anything and anybody,' said Robert. + +The vicar looked at him sharply, but the young man's critical and +meditative look reassured him. + +The next day, just before early dinner, Rose and Agnes, who had been for +a walk, were startled, as they were turning into their own gate, by the +frantic waving of a white handkerchief from the vicarage garden. It was +Mrs. Thornburgh's accepted way of calling the attention of the Burwood +inmates, and the girls walked on. They found the good lady waiting for +them in the drive in a characteristic glow and flutter. + +'My dears, I have been looking out for you all the morning! I should +have come over but for the stores coming, and a tiresome man from +Randall's. I've had to bargain with him for a whole hour about taking +back those sweets. I was swindled, of course, but we should have died if +we'd had to eat them up. Well, now, my dears----' + +The vicar's wife paused. Her square short figure was between the two +girls; she had on arm of each, and she looked significantly from one to +another, her gray curls flapping across her face as she did so. + +'Go on, Mrs. Thornburgh,' cried Rose. 'You make us quite nervous.' + +'How do you like Mr. Elsmere?' she inquired solemnly. + +'Very much,' said both in chorus. + +Mrs. Thornburgh surveyed Rose's smiling frankness with a little sigh. +Things were going grandly, but she could imagine a disposition of +affairs which would have given her personally more pleasure. + +'_How--would--you--like_--him for a brother-in-law?' she inquired, +beginning in a whisper, with slow emphasis, patting Rose's arm, and +bringing out the last words with a rush. + +Agnes caught the twinkle in Rose's eye, but she answered for them both +demurely. + +'We have no objection to entertain the idea. But you must explain.' + +'Explain!' cried Mrs. Thornburgh. 'I should think it explains itself. At +least if you'd been in this house the last twenty-four hours you'd think +so. Since the moment when he first met her, it's been "Miss Leyburn," +"Miss Leyburn," all the time. One might have seen it with half an eye +from the beginning.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh had not seen it with two eyes, as we know, till it was +pointed out to her; but her imagination worked with equal liveliness +backwards or forwards. + +'He went to see you yesterday, didn't he--yes, I know he did--and he +overtook her in the pony-carriage--the vicar saw them from across the +valley--and he brought her back from your house, and then he kept +William up till nearly twelve talking of her. And now he wants a picnic. +Oh, it's as plain as a pike-staff. And, my dears, _nothing_ to be said +against him. Fifteen hundred a year if he's a penny. A nice living, only +his mother to look after, and as good a young fellow as ever stepped.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh stopped, choked almost by her own eloquence. The girls, +who had by this time established her between them on a garden-seat, +looked at her with smiling composure. They were accustomed to letting +her have her budget out. + +'And now, of course,' she resumed, taking breath, and chilled a little +by their silence, 'now, of course, I want to know about Catherine?' She +regarded them with anxious interrogation. Rose, still smiling, slowly +shook her head. + +'What!' cried Mrs. Thornburgh; then, with charming inconsistency, 'oh, +you can't know anything in two days.' + +'That's just it,' said Agnes, intervening; 'we can't know anything in +two days. No one ever will know anything about Catherine, if she takes +to anybody, till the last minute.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh's face fell. 'It's very difficult when people will be so +reserved,' she said dolefully. + +The girls acquiesced, but intimated that they saw no way out of it. + +'At any rate we can bring them together,' she broke out, brightening +again. 'We can have picnics, you know, and teas, and all that--and +watch. Now listen.' + +And the vicar's wife sketched out a programme of festivities for the +next fortnight she had been revolving in her inventive head, which took +the sisters' breath away. Rose bit her lip to keep in her laughter. +Agnes with vast self-possession took Mrs. Thornburgh in hand. She +pointed out firmly that nothing would be so likely to make Catherine +impracticable as fuss. 'In vain is the net spread,' etc. She preached +from the text with a worldly wisdom which quickly crushed Mrs. +Thornburgh. + +'Well, _what_ am I to do, my dears?' she said at last helplessly. 'Look +at the weather! We must have some picnics, if it's only to amuse +Robert.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh spent her life between a condition of effervescence and +a condition of feeling the world too much for her. Rose and Agnes, +having now reduced her to the latter state, proceeded cautiously to give +her her head again. They promised her two or three expeditions and one +picnic at least; they said they would do their best; they promised they +would report what they saw and be very discreet, both feeling the comedy +of Mrs. Thornburgh as the advocate of discretion; and then they departed +to their early dinner, leaving the vicars wife decidedly less +self-confident than they found her. + +'The first matrimonial excitement of the family,' cried Agnes as they +walked home. 'So far no one can say the Miss Leyburns have been +besieged!' + +'It will be all moonshine,' Rose replied decisively. 'Mr. Elsmere may +lose his heart; we may aid and abet him; Catherine will live in the +clouds for a few weeks, and come down from them at the end with the air +of an angel, to give him his _coup de grace_. As I said before--poor +fellow!' + +Agnes made no answer. She was never so positive as Rose, and on the +whole did not find herself the worse for it in life. Besides, she +understood that there was a soreness at the bottom of Rose's heart that +was always showing itself in unexpected connections. + +There was no necessity, indeed, for elaborate schemes for assisting +Providence. Mrs. Thornburgh had her picnics and her expeditions, but +without them Robert Elsmere would have been still man enough to see +Catherine Leyburn every day. He loitered about the roads along which she +must needs pass to do her many offices of charity; he offered the vicar +to take a class in the school, and was naively exultant that the vicar +curiously happened to fix an hour when he must needs see Miss Leyburn +going or coming on the same errand; he dropped into Burwood on any +conceivable pretext, till Rose and Agnes lost all inconvenient respect +for his cloth and Mrs. Leyburn sent him on errands; and he even insisted +that Catherine and the vicar should make use of him and his pastoral +services in one or two of the cases of sickness or poverty under their +care. Catherine, with a little more reserve than usual, took him one day +to the Tysons', and introduced him to the poor crippled son who was +likely to live on paralysed for some time, under the weight, moreover, +of a black cloud of depression which seldom lifted. Mrs. Tyson kept her +talking in the room, and she never forgot the scene. It showed her a new +aspect of a man whose intellectual life was becoming plain to her, while +his moral life was still something of a mystery. The look in Elsmere's +face as he sat bending over the maimed young farmer, the strength and +tenderness of the man, the diffidence of the few religious things he +said, and yet the reality and force of them, struck her powerfully. He +had forgotten her, forgotten everything save the bitter human need, and +the comfort it was his privilege to offer. Catherine stood answering +Mrs. Tyson at random, the tears rising in her eyes. She slipped out +while he was still talking, and went home strangely moved. + +As to the festivities, she did her best to join in them. The sensitive +soul often reproached itself afterwards for having juggled in the +matter. Was it not her duty to manage a little society and gaiety for +her sisters sometimes? Her mother could not undertake it, and was always +plaintively protesting that Catherine would not be young. So for a short +week or two Catherine did her best to be young, and climbed the mountain +grass, or forded the mountain streams with the energy and the grace of +perfect health, trembling afterwards at night as she knelt by her window +to think how much sheer pleasure the day had contained. Her life had +always had the tension of a bent bow. It seemed to her once or twice +during this fortnight as though something were suddenly relaxed in her, +and she felt a swift Bunyan-like terror of backsliding, of falling away. +But she never confessed herself fully; she was even blind to what her +perspicacity would have seen so readily in another's case--the little +arts and manoeuvres of those about her. It did not strike her that +Mrs. Thornburgh was more flighty and more ebullient than ever; that the +vicar's wife kissed her at odd times, and with a quite unwonted +effusion; or that Agnes and Rose, when they were in the wild heart of +the mountains, or wandering far and wide in search of sticks for a +picnic fire, showed a perfect genius for avoiding Mr. Elsmere, whom both +of them liked, and that in consequence his society almost always fell to +her. Nor did she ever analyse what would have been the attraction of +those walks to her without that tall figure at her side, that bounding +step, that picturesque impetuous talk. There are moments when Nature +throws a kind of heavenly mist and dazzlement round the soul it would +fain make happy. The soul gropes blindly on; if it saw its way it might +be timid and draw back, but kind powers lead it genially onward through +a golden darkness. + +Meanwhile if she did not know herself, she and Elsmere learnt with +wonderful quickness and thoroughness to know each other. The two +households so near together, and so isolated from the world besides, +were necessarily in constant communication. And Elsmere made a most +stirring element in their common life. Never had he been more keen, more +strenuous. It gave Catherine new lights on modern character altogether +to see how he was preparing himself for this Surrey living--reading up +the history, geology, and botany of the Weald and its neighbourhood, +plunging into reports of agricultural commissions, or spending his quick +brain on village sanitation, with the oddest results sometimes, so far +as his conversation was concerned. And then in the middle of his +disquisitions, which would keep her breathless with a sense of being +whirled through space at the tail of an electric kite, the kite would +come down with a run, and the preacher and reformer would come hat in +hand to the girl beside him, asking her humbly to advise him, to pour +out on him some of that practical experience of hers among the poor and +suffering, for the sake of which he would in an instant scornfully fling +out of sight all his own magnificent plannings. Never had she told so +much of her own life to any one; her consciousness of it sometimes +filled her with a sort of terror, lest she might have been trading, as +it were, for her own advantage on the sacred things of God. But he would +have it. His sympathy, his sweetness, his quick spiritual feeling drew +the stories out of her. And then how his bright frank eyes would soften! +With what a reverence would he touch her hand when she said good-bye! + +And on her side she felt that she knew almost as much about Murewell as +he did. She could imagine the wild beauty of the Surrey heathland, she +could see the white square rectory with its sloping walled garden, the +juniper common just outside the straggling village; she could even +picture the strange squire, solitary in the great Tudor Hall, the author +of terrible books against the religion of Christ of which she shrank +from hearing, and share the anxieties of the young rector as to his +future relations towards a personality so marked, and so important to +every soul in the little community he was called to rule. Here all was +plain sailing; she understood him perfectly, and her gentle comments, or +her occasional sarcasms, were friendliness itself. + +But it was when he turned to larger things--to books, movements, leaders +of the day--that she was often puzzled, sometimes distressed. Why would +he seem to exalt and glorify rebellion against the established order in +the person of Mr. Grey? Or why, ardent as his own faith was, would he +talk as though opinion was a purely personal matter, hardly in itself to +be made the subject of moral judgment at all, and as though right belief +were a blessed privilege and boon rather than a law and an obligation? +When his comments on men and things took this tinge, she would turn +silent, feeling a kind of painful opposition between his venturesome +speech and his clergyman's dress. + +And yet, as we all know, these ways of speech were not his own. He was +merely talking the natural Christian language of this generation; +whereas she, the child of a mystic--solitary, intense, and deeply +reflective from her earliest youth--was still thinking and speaking in +the language of her father's generation. + +But although, as often as his unwariness brought him near to these +points of jarring, he would hurry away from them, conscious that here +was the one profound difference between them, it was clear to him that +insensibly she had moved further than she knew from her father's +standpoint. Even among these solitudes, far from men and literature, she +had unconsciously felt the breath of her time in some degree. As he +penetrated deeper into the nature he found it honeycombed, as it were, +here and there, with beautiful unexpected softnesses and diffidences. +Once, after a long walk, as they were lingering homewards under a cloudy +evening sky, he came upon the great problem of her life--Rose and Rose's +art. He drew her difficulty from her with the most delicate skill. She +had laid it bare, and was blushing to think how she had asked his +counsel, almost before she knew where their talk was leading. How was it +lawful for the Christian to spend the few short years of the earthly +combat in any pursuit, however noble and exquisite, which merely aimed +at the gratification of the senses, and implied in the pursuer the +emphasising rather than the surrender of self? + +He argued it very much as Kingsley would have argued it, tried to lift +her to a more intelligent view of a multifarious world, dwelling on the +function of pure beauty in life, and on the influence of beauty on +character, pointing out the value to the race of all individual +development, and pressing home on her the natural religious question: +How are the artistic aptitudes to be explained unless the Great Designer +meant them to have a use and function in His world? She replied +doubtfully that she had always supposed they were lawful for recreation, +and like any other trade for bread-winning, but---- + +Then he told her much that he knew about the humanising effect of music +on the poor. He described to her the efforts of a London society, of +which he was a subscribing member, to popularise the best music among +the lowest class; he dwelt almost with passion on the difference +between the joy to be got out of such things and the common brutalising +joys of the workman. And you could not have art without artists. In this +again he was only talking the commonplaces of his day. But to her they +were not commonplaces at all. She looked at him from time to time, her +great eyes lightening and deepening as it seemed with every fresh thrust +of his. + +'I am grateful to you,' she said at last with an involuntary outburst, +'I am _very_ grateful to you!' + +And she gave a long sigh as if some burden she had long borne in patient +silence had been loosened a little, if only by the fact of speech about +it. She was not convinced exactly. She was too strong a nature to +relinquish a principle without a period of meditative struggle in which +conscience should have all its dues. But her tone made his heart leap. +He felt in it a momentary self-surrender that, coming from a creature of +so rare a dignity, filled him with an exquisite sense of power, and yet +at the same time with a strange humility beyond words. + +A day or two later he was the spectator of a curious little scene. An +aunt of the Leyburns living in Whinborough came to see them. She was +their father's youngest sister, and the wife of a man who had made some +money as a builder in Whinborough. When Robert came in he found her +sitting on the sofa having tea, a large homely-looking woman with gray +hair, a high brow, and prominent white teeth. She had unfastened her +bonnet strings, and a clean white handkerchief lay spread out on her +lap. When Elsmere was introduced to her, she got up, and said with some +effusiveness, and a distinct Westmoreland accent-- + +'Very pleased indeed to make your acquaintance, sir,' while she enclosed +his fingers in a capacious hand. + +Mrs. Leyburn, looking fidgety and uncomfortable, was sitting near her, +and Catherine, the only member of the party who showed no sign of +embarrassment when Robert entered, was superintending her aunt's tea and +talking busily the while. + +Robert sat down at a little distance beside Agnes and Rose, who were +chattering together a little artificially and of set purpose as it +seemed to him. But the aunt was not to be ignored. She talked too loud +not to be overheard, and Agnes inwardly noted that as soon as Robert +Elsmere appeared she talked louder than before. He gathered presently +that she was an ardent Wesleyan, and that she was engaged in describing +to Catherine and Mrs. Leyburn the evangelistic exploits of her eldest +son, who had recently obtained his first circuit as a Wesleyan minister. +He was shrewd enough, too, to guess, after a minute or two, that his +presence and probably his obnoxious clerical dress gave additional zest +to the recital. + +'Oh, his success at Colesbridge has been somethin' marvellous,' he heard +her say, with uplifted hands and eyes, 'some-thin' marvellous. The Lord +has blessed him indeed! It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's +meetin's, or sermons, or parlour work, or just faithful dealin's with +souls one by one. Satan has no cliverer foe than Edward. He never shuts +his eyes; as Edward says himself, it's like trackin' for game is huntin' +for souls. Why, the other day he was walkin' out from Coventry to a +service. It was the Sabbath, and he saw a man in a bit of grass by the +roadside, mendin' his cart. And he stopped did Edward, and gave him the +Word _strong_. The man seemed puzzled like, and said he meant no harm. +"No harm!" says Edward, "when you're just doin' the devil's work every +nail you put in, and hammerin' away, mon, at your own damnation." But +here's his letter.' And while Rose turned away to a far window to hide +an almost hysterical inclination to laugh, Mrs. Fleming opened her bag, +took out a treasured paper, and read with the emphasis and the unction +peculiar to a certain type of revivalism-- + +'"Poor sinner! He was much put about. I left him, praying the Lord my +shaft might rankle in him; ay, might fester and burn in him till he +found no peace but in Jesus. He seemed very dark and destitute--no +respect for the Word or its ministers. A bit farther I met a boy +carrying a load of turnips. To him, too, I was faithful, and he went on, +taking, without knowing it, a precious leaflet with him in his bag. +Glorious work! If Wesleyans will but go on claiming even the highways +for God, sin will skulk yet."' + +A dead silence. Mrs. Fleming folded up the letter and put it back into +her bag. + +'There's your true minister,' she said, with a large judicial utterance +as she closed the snap. 'Wherever he goes Edward must have souls!' + +And she threw a swift searching look at the young clergyman in the +window. + +'He must have very hard work with so much walking and preaching,' said +Catherine gently. + +Somehow, as soon as she spoke, Elsmere saw the whole odd little scene +with other eyes. + +'His work is just wearin' him out,' said the mother fervently; 'but a +minister doesn't think of that. Wherever he goes there are sinners +saved. He stayed last week at a house near Nuneaton. At family prayer +alone there were five saved. And at the prayer-meetin's on the Sabbath +such outpourin's of the Spirit! Edward comes home, his wife tells me, +just ready to drop. Are you acquainted, sir,' she added, turning +suddenly to Elsmere, and speaking in a certain tone of provocation, +'with the labours of our Wesleyan ministers?' + +'No,' said Robert, with his pleasant smile, 'not personally. But I have +the greatest respect for them as a body of devoted men.' + +The look of battle faded from the woman's face. It was not an +unpleasant face. He even saw strange reminiscences of Catherine in it at +times. + +'You're aboot right there, sir. Not that they dare take any credit to +themselves--it's grace, sir, all grace.' + +'Aunt Ellen,' said Catherine, while a sudden light broke over her face; +'I just want you to take Edward a little story from me. Ministers are +good things, but God can do without them.' + +And she laid her hand on her aunt's knee with a smile in which there was +the slightest touch of affectionate satire. + +'I was up among the fells the other day,' she went on; 'I met an elderly +man cutting wood in a plantation, and I stopped and asked him how he +was. "Ah, miss," he said, "verra weel, verra weel. And yet it was nobbut +Friday morning lasst, I cam oop here, awfu' bad in my sperrits like. For +my wife she's sick, an' a' dwinnelt away, and I'm gettin' auld, and +can't wark as I'd used to, and it did luke to me as thoo there was +naethin' afore us nobbut t' Union. And t' mist war low on t' fells, and +I sat oonder t' wall, wettish and broodin' like. And theer--all ov a +soodent the Lord found me! Yes, puir Reuben Judge, as dawn't matter to +naebody, the Lord found un. It war leyke as thoo His feeace cam +a-glisterin' an' a-shinin' through t' mist. An' iver sence then, miss, +aa've jest felt as thoo aa could a' cut an' stackt all t' wood on t' +fell in naw time at a'!" And he waved his hand round the mountain side +which was covered with plantation. And all the way along the path for +ever so long I could hear him singing, chopping away, and quavering out, +"Rock of Ages."' + +She paused, her delicate face, with just a little quiver in the lip, +turned to her aunt, her eyes glowing as though a hidden fire had leapt +suddenly outward. And yet the gesture, the attitude, was simplicity and +unconsciousness itself. Robert had never heard her say anything so +intimate before. Nor had he ever seen her so inspired, so beautiful. She +had transmuted the conversation at a touch. It had been barbarous prose; +she had turned it into purest poetry. Only the noblest souls have such +an alchemy as this at command, thought the watcher on the other side of +the room with a passionate reverence. + +'I wasn't thinkin' of narrowin' the Lord down to ministers,' said Mrs. +Fleming, with a certain loftiness. 'We all know He can do without us +puir worms.' + +Then, seeing that no one replied, the good woman got up to go. Much of +her apparel had slipped away from her in the fervours of revivalist +anecdote, and while she hunted for gloves and reticule--officiously +helped by the younger girls--Robert crossed over to Catherine. + +'You lifted us on to your own high places!' he said, bending down to +her; 'I shall carry your story with me through the fells.' + +She looked up, and as she met his warm moved look a little glow and +tremor crept into the face, destroying its exalted expression. He broke +the spell; she sank from the poet into the embarrassed woman. + +'You must see my old man,' she said, with an effort; 'he is worth a +library of sermons. I must introduce him to you.' + +He could think of nothing else to say just then, but could only stand +impatiently wishing for Mrs. Fleming's disappearance, that he might +somehow appropriate her eldest niece. But alas! when she went, Catherine +went out with her, and reappeared no more, though he waited some time. + +He walked home in a whirl of feeling; on the way he stopped, and leaning +over a gate which led into one of the river-fields gave himself up to +the mounting tumult within. Gradually, from the half-articulate chaos of +hope and memory, there emerged the deliberate voice of his inmost +manhood. + +'In her and her only is my heart's desire! She and she only if she will, +and God will, shall be my wife!' + +He lifted his head and looked out on the dewy field, the evening beauty +of the hills, with a sense of immeasurable change-- + + 'Tears + Were in his eyes, and in his ears + The murmur of a thousand years.' + +He felt himself knit to his kind, to his race, as he had never felt +before. It was as though, after a long apprenticeship, he had sprung +suddenly into maturity--entered at last into the full human heritage. +But the very intensity and solemnity of his own feeling gave him a rare +clear-sightedness. He realised that he had no certainty of success, +scarcely even an entirely reasonable hope. But what of that? Were they +not together, alone, practically, in these blessed solitudes? Would they +not meet to-morrow, and next day, and the day after? Were not time and +opportunity all his own? How kind her looks are even now! Courage! And +through that maidenly kindness his own passion shall send the last, +transmuting glow. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The following morning about noon, Rose, who had been coaxed and +persuaded by Catherine, much against her will, into taking a singing +class at the school, closed the school door behind her with a sigh of +relief, and tripped up the road to Burwood. + +'How abominably they sang this morning!' she said to herself with +curving lip. 'Talk of the natural north-country gift for music! What +ridiculous fictions people set up! Dear me, what clouds! Perhaps we +shan't get our walk to Shanmoor after all, and if we don't, and +if--if--' her cheek flushed with a sudden excitement--'if Mr. Elsmere +doesn't propose, Mrs. Thornburgh will be unmanageable. It is all Agnes +and I can do to keep her in bounds as it is, and if _something_ doesn't +come off to-day, she'll be for reversing the usual proceeding, and +asking _Catherine_ her intentions, which would ruin everything.' + +Then raising her head she swept her eyes round the sky. The wind was +freshening, the clouds were coming up fast from the westward; over the +summit of High Fell and the crags on either side, a gray straight-edged +curtain was already lowering. + +'It will hold up yet awhile,' she thought, 'and if it rains later we can +get a carriage at Shanmoor and come back by the road.' + +And she walked on homewards meditating, her thin fingers clasped before +her, the wind blowing her skirts, the blue ribbons on her hat, the +little gold curls on her temples, in a pretty many-coloured turmoil +about her. When she got to Burwood she shut herself into the room which +was peculiarly hers, the room which had been a stable. Now it was full +of artistic odds and ends--her fiddle, of course, and piles of music, +her violin stand, a few deal tables and cane chairs beautified by a +number of _chiffons_, bits of Liberty stuffs with the edges still +ragged, or cheap morsels of Syrian embroidery. On the tables stood +photographs of musicians and friends--the spoils of her visits to +Manchester, and of two visits to London which gleamed like golden points +in the girl's memory. The plastered walls were covered with an odd +medley. Here was a round mirror, of which Rose was enormously proud. She +had extracted it from a farmhouse of the neighbourhood, and paid for it +with her own money. There a group of unfinished headlong sketches of the +most fiercely impressionist description--the work and the gift of a knot +of Manchester artists, who had feted and flattered the beautiful little +Westmoreland girl, when she was staying among them, to her heart's +content. Manchester, almost alone among our great towns of the present +day, has not only a musical, but a pictorial life of its own; its young +artists dub themselves 'a school,' study in Paris, and when they come +home scout the Academy and its methods, and pine to set up a rival +art-centre, skilled in all the methods of the Salon, in the murky north. +Rose's uncle, originally a clerk in a warehouse, and a rough diamond +enough, had more or less moved with the times, like his brother Richard; +at any rate he had grown rich, had married a decent wife, and was glad +enough to befriend his dead brother's children, who wanted nothing of +him, and did their uncle a credit of which he was sensible, by their +good manners and good looks. Music was the only point at which he +touched the culture of the times, like so many business men; but it +pleased him also to pose as a patron of local art; so that when Rose +went to stay with her childless uncle and aunt, she found long-haired +artists and fiery musicians about the place, who excited and encouraged +her musical gift, who sketched her while she played, and talked to the +pretty, clever, unformed creature of London and Paris and Italy, and +set her pining for that golden _vie de Boheme_ which she alone +apparently of all artists was destined never to know. + +For she was an artist--she would be an artist--let Catherine say what +she would! She came back from Manchester restless for she knew not what, +thirsty for the joys and emotions of art, determined to be free, +reckless, passionate; with Wagner and Brahms in her young blood; and +found Burwood waiting for her--Burwood, the lonely house in the lonely +valley, of which Catherine was the presiding genius. _Catherine!_ For +Rose, what a multitude of associations clustered round the name! To her +it meant everything at this moment against which her soul rebelled--the +most scrupulous order, the most rigid self-repression, the most +determined sacrificing of 'this warm kind world,' with all its +indefensible delights, to a cold other-world with its torturing +inadmissible claims. Even in the midst of her stolen joys at Manchester +or London, this mere name, the mere mental image of Catherine moving +through life, wrapped in a religious peace and certainty as austere as +they were beautiful, and asking of all about her the same absolute +surrender to an awful Master she gave so easily herself, was enough to +chill the wayward Rose, and fill her with a kind of restless despair. +And at home, as the vicar said, the two sisters were always on the verge +of conflict. Rose had enough of her father in her to suffer in +resisting, but resist she must by the law of her nature. + +Now, as she threw off her walking things, she fell first upon her +violin, and rushed through a Brahms's 'Liebeslied,' her eyes dancing, +her whole light form thrilling with the joy of it; and then with a +sudden revulsion she stopped playing, and threw herself down listlessly +by the open window. Close by against the wall was a little +looking-glass, by which she often arranged her ruffled locks; she +glanced at it now, it showed her a brilliant face enough, but drooping +lips, and eyes darkened with the extravagant melancholy of eighteen. + +'It is come to a pretty pass,' she said to herself, 'that I should be +able to think of nothing but schemes for getting Catherine married and +out of my way! Considering what she is and what I am, and how she has +slaved for us all her life, I seem to have descended pretty low. Heigh +ho!' + +And with a portentous sigh she dropped her chin on her hand. She was +half acting, acting to herself. Life was not really quite unbearable, +and she knew it. But it relieved her to overdo it. + +'I wonder how much chance there is,' she mused presently. 'Mr. Elsmere +will soon be ridiculous. Why, _I_ saw him gather up those violets she +threw away yesterday on Moor Crag. And as for her, I don't believe she +has realised the situation a bit. At least, if she has, she is as unlike +other mortals in this as in everything else. But when she does----' + +She frowned and meditated, but got no light on the problem. Chattie +jumped up on the window-sill, with her usual stealthy _aplomb_, and +rubbed herself against the girl's face. + +'Oh, Chattie!' cried Rose, throwing her arms round the cat, 'if +Catherine 'll _only_ marry Mr. Elsmere, my dear, and be happy ever +afterwards, and set me free to live my own life a bit, I'll be so good, +you won't know me, Chattie. And you shall have a new collar, my beauty, +and cream till you die of it!' + +And springing up she dragged in the cat, and snatching a scarlet anemone +from a bunch on the table, stood opposite Chattie, who stood slowly +waving her magnificent tail from side to side, and glaring as though it +were not at all to her taste to be hustled and bustled in this way. + +'Now, Chattie, listen! Will she?' + +A leaf of the flower dropped on Chattie's nose. + +'Won't she? Will she? Won't she? Will---- Tiresome flower, why did +Nature give it such a beggarly few petals? If I'd had a daisy it would +have all come right. Come, Chattie, waltz; and let's forget this wicked +world!' + +And, snatching up her violin, the girl broke into a Strauss waltz, +dancing to it the while, her cotton skirts flying, her pretty feet +twinkling, till her eyes glowed, and her cheeks blazed with a double +intoxication--the intoxication of movement, and the intoxication of +sound--the cat meanwhile following her with little mincing perplexed +steps, as though not knowing what to make of her. + +'Rose, you madcap!' cried Agnes, opening the door. + +'Not at all, my dear,' said Rose calmly, stopping to take breath. +'Excellent practice and uncommonly difficult. Try if you can do it, and +see!' + +The weather held up in a gray grudging sort of way, and Mrs. Thornburgh +especially was all for braving the clouds and going on with the +expedition. It was galling to her that she herself would have to be +driven to Shanmoor behind the fat vicarage pony, while the others would +be climbing the fells, and all sorts of exciting things might be +happening. Still it was infinitely better to be half in it than not in +it at all, and she started by the side of the vicarage 'man' in a most +delicious flutter. The skies might fall any day now. Elsmere had not +confided in her, though she was unable to count the openings she had +given him thereto. For one of the frankest of men he had kept his +secret, so far as words went, with a remarkable tenacity. Probably the +neighbourhood of Mrs. Thornburgh was enough to make the veriest +chatterbox secretive. But notwithstanding, no one possessing the clue +could live in the same house with him these June days without seeing +that the whole man was absorbed, transformed, and that the crisis might +be reached at any moment. Even the vicar was eager and watchful, and +playing up to his wife in fine style, and if the situation had so +worked on the vicar, Mrs. Thornburgh's state is easier imagined than +described. + +The walk to Shanmoor need not be chronicled. The party kept together. +Robert fancied sometimes that there was a certain note of purpose in the +way in which Catherine clung to the vicar. If so it did not disquiet +him. Never had she been kinder, more gentle. Nay, as the walk went on a +lovely gaiety broke through her tranquil manner, as though she, like the +others, had caught exhilaration from the sharpened breeze and the +towering mountains, restored to all their grandeur by the storm clouds. + +And yet she had started in some little inward trouble. She had promised +to join this walk to Shanmoor, she had promised to go with the others on +a picnic the following day, but her conscience was pricking her. Twice +this last fortnight had she been forced to give up a night-school she +held in a little lonely hamlet among the fells, because even _she_ had +been too tired to walk there and back after a day of physical exertion. +Were not the world and the flesh encroaching? She had been conscious of +a strange inner restlessness as they all stood waiting in the road for +the vicar and Elsmere. Agnes had thought her looking depressed and pale, +and even dreamt for a moment of suggesting to her to stay at home. And +then ten minutes after they had started it had all gone, her depression, +blown away by the winds,--or charmed away by a happy voice, a manly +presence, a keen responsive eye? + +Elsmere, indeed, was gaiety itself. He kept up an incessant war with +Rose; he had a number of little jokes going at the vicar's expense, +which kept that good man in a half-protesting chuckle most of the way; +he cleared every gate that presented itself in first-rate Oxford form, +and climbed every point of rock with a cat-like agility that set the +girls scoffing at the pretence of invalidism under which he had foisted +himself on Whindale. + +'How fine all this black purple is!' he cried, as they topped the ridge, +and the Shanmoor valley lay before them, bounded on the other side by +line after line of mountain, Wetherlam and the Pikes and Fairfield in +the far distance, piled sombrely under a sombre sky. 'I had grown quite +tired of the sun. He had done his best to make you commonplace.' + +'Tired of the sun in Westmoreland?' said Catherine, with a little +mocking wonder. 'How wanton, how prodigal!' + +'Does it deserve a Nemesis?' he said, laughing. 'Drowning from now till +I depart? No matter. I can bear a second deluge with an even mind. On +this enchanted soil all things are welcome!' + +She looked up, smiling, at his vehemence, taking it all as a tribute to +the country, or to his own recovered health. He stood leaning on his +stick, gazing, however, not at the view but at her. The others stood a +little way off laughing and chattering. As their eyes met, a strange +new pulse leapt up in Catherine. + +'The wind is very boisterous here,' she said, with a shiver. 'I think we +ought to be going on.' + +And she hurried up to the others, nor did she leave their shelter till +they were in sight of the little Shanmoor inn, where they were to have +tea. The pony carriage was already standing in front of the inn, and +Mrs. Thornburgh's gray curls shaking at the window. + +'William!' she shouted, 'bring them in. Tea is just ready, and Mr. +Ruskin was here last week, and there are ever so many new names in the +visitors' book!' + +While the girls went in Elsmere stood looking a moment at the inn, the +bridge, and the village. It was a characteristic Westmoreland scene. The +low whitewashed inn, with its newly painted signboard, was to his right, +the pony at the door lazily flicking off the flies and dropping its +greedy nose in search of the grains of corn among the cobbles; to his +left a gray stone bridge over a broad light-filled river; beyond, a +little huddled village backed by and apparently built out of the great +slate quarry which represented the only industry of the neighbourhood, +and a tiny towered church--the scene on the Sabbath of Mr. Mayhew's +ministrations. Beyond the village, shoulders of purple fell, and behind +the inn masses of broken crag rising at the very head of the valley into +a fine pike, along whose jagged edges the rain-clouds were trailing. +There was a little lurid storm-light on the river, but, in general, the +colour was all dark and rich, the white inn gleaming on a green and +purple background. He took it all into his heart, covetously, greedily, +trying to fix it there for ever. + +Presently he was called in by the vicar, and found a tempting tea spread +in a light upper room, where Agnes and Rose were already making fun of +the chromo-lithographs and rummaging the visitors' book. The scrambling, +chattering meal passed like a flash. At the beginning of it Mrs. +Thornburgh's small gray eyes had travelled restlessly from face to face, +as though to say, 'What--_no_ news yet? Nothing happened?' As for +Elsmere, though it seemed to him at the time one of the brightest +moments of existence, he remembered little afterwards but the scene: the +peculiar clean mustiness of the room only just opened for the summer +season, a print of the Princess of Wales on the wall opposite him, a +stuffed fox over the mantelpiece, Rose's golden head and heavy amber +necklace, and the figure at the vicar's right, in a gown of a little +dark blue check, the broad hat shading the white brow and luminous eyes. + +When tea was over they lounged out on the bridge. There was to be no +long lingering, however. The clouds were deepening, the rain could not +be far off. But if they started soon they could probably reach home +before it came down. Elsmere and Rose hung over the gray stone parapet, +mottled with the green and gold of innumerable mosses, and looked down +through a fringe of English maidenhair growing along the coping, into +the clear eddies of the stream. Suddenly he raised himself on one elbow, +and, shading his eyes, looked to where the vicar and Catherine were +standing in front of the inn, touched for an instant by a beam of fitful +light slipping between two great rain-clouds. + +'How well that hat and dress become your sister!' he said, the words +breaking, as it were, from his lips. + +'Do you think Catherine pretty?' said Rose with an excellent pretence of +innocence, detaching a little pebble and flinging it harmlessly at a +water-wagtail balancing on a stone below. + +He flushed. 'Pretty! You might as well apply the word to your mountains, +to the exquisite river, to that great purple peak!' + +'Yes,' thought Rose, 'she is not unlike that high cold peak!' But her +girlish sympathy conquered her; it was very exciting, and she liked +Elsmere. She turned back to him, her face overspread with a quite +irrepressible smile. He reddened still more, then they stared into each +other's eyes, and without a word more understood each other perfectly. + +Rose held out her hand to him with a little brusque _bon camarade_ +gesture. He pressed it warmly in his. + +'That was nice of you!' he cried. 'Very nice of you! Friends then?' + +She nodded, and drew her hand away just as Agnes and the vicar disturbed +them. + +Meanwhile Catherine was standing by the side of the pony carriage, +watching Mrs. Thornburgh's preparations. + +'You're sure you don't mind driving home alone?' she said in a troubled +voice. 'Mayn't I go with you?' + +'My dear, certainly not! As if I wasn't accustomed to going about alone +at my time of life! No, no, my dear, you go and have your walk; you'll +get home before the rain. Ready, James.' + +The old vicarage factotum could not imagine what made his charge so +anxious to be off. She actually took the whip out of his hand and gave a +flick to the pony, who swerved and started off in a way which would have +made his mistress clamorously nervous under any other circumstances. +Catherine stood looking after her. + +'Now, then, right about face and quick march!' exclaimed the vicar. +'We've got to race that cloud over the Pike. It'll be up with us in no +time.' + +Off they started, and were soon climbing the slippery green slopes, or +crushing through the fern of the fell they had descended earlier in the +afternoon. Catherine for some little way walked last of the party, the +vicar in front of her. Then Elsmere picked a stonecrop, quarrelled over +its precise name with Rose, and waited for Catherine, who had a very +close and familiar knowledge of the botany of the district. + +'You have crushed me,' he said, laughing, as he put the flower carefully +into his pocket-book; 'but it is worth while to be crushed by any one +who can give so much ground for their knowledge. How you do know your +mountains--from their peasants to their plants!' + +'I have had more than ten able-bodied years living and scrambling among +them,' she said, smiling. + +'Do you keep up all your visits and teaching in the winter?' + +'Oh, not so much, of course! But people must be helped and taught in the +winter. And our winter is often not as hard as yours down south.' + +'Do you go on with that night-school in Poll Ghyll, for instance?' he +said, with another note in his voice. + +Catherine looked at him and coloured. 'Rose has been telling tales,' she +said. 'I wish she would leave my proceedings alone. Poll Ghyll is the +family bone of contention at present. Yes, I go on with it. I always +take a lantern when the night is dark, and I know every inch of the +ground, and Bob is always with me; aren't you, Bob?' + +And she stooped down to pat the collie beside her. Bob looked up at her, +blinking with a proudly confidential air as though to remind her that +there were a good many such secrets between them. + +'I like to fancy you with your lantern in the dark,' he cried, the +hidden emotion piercing through, 'the night wind blowing about you, the +black mountains to right and left of you, some little stream, perhaps, +running beside you for company, your dog guarding you, and all good +angels going with you.' + +She flushed still more deeply; the impetuous words affected her +strangely. + +'Don't fancy it at all,' she said, laughing. 'It is a very small and +very natural incident of one's life here. Look back, Mr. Elsmere; the +rain has beaten us!' + +He looked back and saw the great Pike over Shanmoor village blotted out +in a moving deluge of rain. The quarry opposite on the mountain side +gleamed green and vivid against the ink-black fell; some clothes hanging +out in the field below the church flapped wildly hither and thither in +the sudden gale, the only spot of white in the prevailing blackness; +children with their petticoats over their heads ran homewards along the +road the walking party had just quitted; the stream beneath, spreading +broadly through the fields, shivered and wrinkled under the blast. Up it +came, and the rain mists with it. In another minute the storm was +beating in their faces. + +'Caught!' cried Elsmere, in a voice almost of jubilation. 'Let me help +you into your cloak, Miss Leyburn.' + +He flung it round her, and struggled into his own mackintosh. The vicar +in front of them turned and waved his hand to them in laughing despair, +then hurried after the others, evidently with the view of performing +for them the same office Elsmere had just performed for Catherine. + +Robert and his companion struggled on for a while in a breathless +silence against the deluge, which seemed to beat on them from all sides. +He walked behind her, sheltering her by his tall form and his big +umbrella as much as he could. His pulses were all aglow with the joy of +the storm. It seemed to him that he rejoiced with the thirsty grass over +which the rain streams were running, that his heart filled with the +shrunken becks as the flood leapt along them. Let the elements thunder +and rave as they pleased. Could he not at a word bring the light of that +face, those eyes, upon him? Was she not his for a moment in the rain and +the solitude, as she had never been in the commonplace sunshine of their +valley life? + +Suddenly he heard an exclamation, and saw her run on in front of him. +What was the matter? Then he noticed for the first time that Rose, far +ahead, was still walking in her cotton dress. The little scatterbrain +had, of course, forgotten her cloak. But, monstrous! There was Catherine +stripping off her own, Rose refusing it. In vain. The sister's +determined arms put it round her. Rose is enwrapped, buttoned up before +she knows where she is, and Catherine falls back, pursued by some shaft +from Rose, more sarcastic than grateful, to judge by the tone of it. + +'Miss Leyburn, what have you been doing?' + +'Rose had forgotten her cloak,' she said briefly. 'She has a very thin +dress on, and she is the only one of us that takes cold easily.' + +'You must take my mackintosh,' he said at once. + +She laughed in his face. + +'As if I should do anything of the sort!' + +'You must,' he said, quietly stripping it off. 'Do you think that you +are always to be allowed to go through the world taking thought of other +people and allowing no one to take thought for you?' + +He held it out to her. + +'No, no! This is absurd, Mr. Elsmere. You are not strong yet. And I have +often told you that nothing hurts me.' + +He hung it deliberately over his arm. 'Very well, then, there it stays!' + +And they hurried on again, she biting her lip and on the point of +laughter. + +'Mr. Elsmere, be sensible!' she said presently, her look changing to one +of real distress. 'I should never forgive myself if you got a chill +after your illness!' + +'You will not be called upon,' he said in the most matter-of-fact tone. +'Men's coats are made to keep out weather,' and he pointed to his own, +closely buttoned up. 'Your dress--I can't help being disrespectful under +the circumstances--will be wet through in ten minutes.' + +Another silence. Then he overtook her. + +'Please, Miss Leyburn,' he said, stopping her. + +There was an instant's mute contest between them. The rain splashed on +the umbrellas. She could not help it, she broke down into the merriest, +most musical laugh of a child that can hardly stop itself, and he +joined. + +'Mr. Elsmere, you are ridiculous!' + +But she submitted. He put the mackintosh round her, thinking, bold man, +as she turned her rosy rain-dewed face to him, of Wordsworth's 'Louisa,' +and the poet's cry of longing. + +And yet he was not so bold either. Even at this moment of exhilaration +he was conscious of a bar that checked and arrested. Something--what was +it?--drew invisible lines of defence about her. A sort of divine fear of +her mingled with his rising passion. Let him not risk too much too soon. + +They walked on briskly, and were soon on the Whindale side of the pass. +To the left of them the great hollow of High Fell unfolded, storm-beaten +and dark, the river issuing from the heart of it like an angry voice. + +'What a change!' he said, coming up with her as the path widened. 'How +impossible that it should have been only yesterday afternoon I was +lounging up here in the heat, by the pool where the stream rises, +watching the white butterflies on the turf, and reading "Laodamia"!' + +'"Laodamia"!' she said, half sighing as she caught the name. 'Is it one +of those you like best?' + +'Yes,' he said, bending forward that he might see her in spite of the +umbrella. 'How superb it is--the roll, the majesty of it; the severe +chastened beauty of the main feeling, the individual lines!' + +And he quoted line after line, lingering over the cadences. + +'It was my father's favourite of all,' she said, in the low vibrating +voice of memory. 'He said the last verse to me the day before he died.' + +Robert recalled it-- + + 'Yet tears to human suffering are due, + And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown + Are mourned by man, and not by man alone + As fondly we believe.' + +Poor Richard Leyburn! Yet where had the defeat lain? + +'Was he happy in his school life?' he asked gently. 'Was teaching what +he liked?' + +'Oh yes--only--' Catherine paused and then added hurriedly, as though +drawn on in spite of herself by the grave sympathy of his look, 'I never +knew anybody so good who thought himself of so little account. He always +believed that he had missed everything, wasted everything, and that +anybody else would have made infinitely more out of his life. He was +always blaming, scourging himself. And all the time he was the noblest, +purest, most devoted----' + +She stopped. Her voice had passed beyond her control. Elsmere was +startled by the feeling she showed. Evidently he had touched one of the +few sore places in this pure heart. It was as though her memory of her +father had in it elements of almost intolerable pathos, as though the +child's brooding love and loyalty were in perpetual protest, even now +after this lapse of years, against the verdict which an over-scrupulous, +despondent soul had pronounced upon itself. Did she feel that he had +gone uncomforted out of life--even by her--even by religion?--was that +the sting? + +'Oh, I can understand!' he said reverently--'I can understand. I have +come across it once or twice, that fierce self-judgment of the good. It +is the most stirring and humbling thing in life.' Then his voice +dropped. 'And after the last conflict--the last "quailing breath"--the +last onslaughts of doubt or fear--think of the Vision waiting--the +Eternal Comfort-- + + '"Oh, my only Light! + It cannot be + That I am he + On whom Thy tempests fell all night!"' + +The words fell from the softened voice like noble music. + +There was a pause. Then Catherine raised her eyes to his. They swam in +tears, and yet the unspoken thanks in them were radiance itself. It +seemed to him as though she came closer to him like a child to an elder +who has soothed and satisfied an inward smart. + +They walked on in silence. They were just nearing the swollen river +which roared below them. On the opposite bank two umbrellas were +vanishing through the field gate into the road, but the vicar had turned +and was waiting for them. They could see his becloaked figure leaning on +his stick through the light wreaths of mist that floated above the +tumbling stream. The abnormally heavy rain had ceased, but the clouds +seemed to be dragging along the very floor of the valley. + +The stepping-stones came into sight. He leaped on the first and held out +his hand to her. When they started she would have refused his help with +scorn. Now, after a moment's hesitation she yielded, and he felt her +dear weight on him as he guided her carefully from stone to stone. In +reality it is both difficult and risky to be helped over +stepping-stones. You had much better manage for yourself; and half way +through Catherine had a mind to tell him so. But the words died on her +lips which smiled instead. He could have wished that passage from stone +to stone could have lasted for ever. She was wrapped up grotesquely in +his mackintosh; her hat was all bedraggled; her gloves dripped in his; +and in spite of all he could have vowed that anything so lovely as that +delicately cut, gravely smiling face, swaying above the rushing brown +water, was never seen in Westmoreland wilds before. + +'It is clearing,' he cried, with ready optimism, as they reached the +bank. 'We shall get our picnic to-morrow after all--we _must_ get it! +Promise me it shall be fine--and you will be there!' + +The vicar was only fifty yards away waiting for them against the field +gate. But Robert held her eagerly, imperiously,--and it seemed to her, +her head was still dizzy with the water. + +'Promise!' he repeated, his voice dropping. + +She could not stop to think of the absurdity of promising for +Westmoreland weather. She could only say faintly 'Yes!' and so release +her hand. + +'You _are_ pretty wet!' said the vicar, looking from one to the other +with a curiosity which Robert's quick sense divined at once was directed +to something else than the mere condition of their garments. But +Catherine noticed nothing; she walked on wrestling blindly with she knew +not what till they reached the vicarage gate. There stood Mrs. +Thornburgh, the light drizzle into which the rain had declined beating +unheeded on her curls and ample shoulders. She stared at Robert's +drenched condition, but he gave her no time to make remarks. + +'Don't take it off,' he said with a laughing wave of the hand to +Catherine; 'I will come for it to-morrow morning.' + +And he ran up the drive, conscious at last that it might be prudent to +get himself into something less spongelike than his present attire as +quickly as possible. + +The vicar followed him. + +'Don't keep Catherine, my dear. There's nothing to tell. Nobody's the +worse.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh took no heed. Opening the iron gate she went through it +on to the deserted rain-beaten road, laid both her hands on Catherine's +shoulders, and looked her straight in the eyes. The vicar's anxious hint +was useless. She could contain herself no longer. She had watched them +from the vicarage come down the fell together, had seen them cross the +stepping stones, lingeringly, hand in hand. + +'My dear Catherine!' she cried, effusively kissing Catherine's glowing +cheek under the shelter of the laurustinus that made a bower of the +gate. 'My _dear_ Catherine!' + +Catherine gazed at her in astonishment. Mrs. Thornburgh's eyes were all +alive, and swarming with questions. If it had been Rose she would have +let them out in one fell flight. But Catherine's personality kept her in +awe. And after a second, as the two stood together, a deep flush rose on +Catherine's face, and an expression of half-frightened apology dawned in +Mrs. Thornburgh's. + +Catherine drew herself away. 'Will you please give Mr. Elsmere his +mackintosh?' she said, taking it off; 'I shan't want it this little +way.' + +And putting it on Mrs. Thornburgh's arm she turned away, walking quickly +round the bend of the road. + +Mrs. Thornburgh watched her open-mouthed, and moved slowly back to the +house in a state of complete collapse. + +'I always knew'--she said with a groan--'I always knew it would never go +right if it was Catherine! _Why_ was it Catherine?' + +And she went in, still hurling at Providence the same vindictive query. + +Meanwhile Catherine, hurrying home, the receding flush leaving a sudden +pallor behind it, was twisting her hands before her in a kind of agony. + +'What have I been doing?' she said to herself. 'What have I been doing?' + +At the gate of Burwood something made her look up. She saw the girls in +their own room--Agnes was standing behind, Rose had evidently rushed +forward to see Catherine come in, and now retreated as suddenly when she +saw her sister look up. + +Catherine understood it all in an instant. 'They, too, are on the +watch,' she thought to herself bitterly. The strong reticent nature was +outraged by the perception that she had been for days the unconscious +actor in a drama of which her sisters and Mrs. Thornburgh had been the +silent and intelligent spectators. + +She came down presently from her room very white and quiet, admitted +that she was tired, and said nothing to anybody. Agnes and Rose noticed +the change at once, whispered to each other when they found an +opportunity, and foreboded ill. + +After their tea-supper, Catherine, unperceived, slipped out of the +little lane gate, and climbed the stony path above the house leading on +to the fell. The rain had ceased, but the clouds hung low and +threatening, and the close air was saturated with moisture. As she +gained the bare fell, sounds of water met her on all sides. The river +cried hoarsely to her from below, the becks in the little ghylls were +full and thunderous; and beside her over the smooth grass slid many a +new-born rivulet, the child of the storm, and destined to vanish with +the night. Catherine's soul went out to welcome the gray damp of the +hills. She knew them best in this mood. They were thus most her own. + +She climbed on till at last she reached the crest of the ridge. Behind +her lay the valley, and on its further side the fells she had crossed in +the afternoon. Before her spread a long green vale, compared to which +Whindale with its white road, its church, and parsonage, and scattered +houses, was the great world itself. Marrisdale had no road and not a +single house. As Catherine descended into it she saw not a sign of human +life. There were sheep grazing in the silence of the long June twilight; +the blackish walls ran down and up again, dividing the green hollow with +melancholy uniformity. Here and there was a sheepfold, suggesting the +bleakness of winter nights; and here and there a rough stone barn for +storing fodder. And beyond the vale, eastwards and northwards, Catherine +looked out upon a wild sea of moors wrapped in mists, sullen and +storm-beaten, while to the left the clouds hung deepest and inkiest over +the high points of the Ullswater mountains. + +When she was once below the pass, man and his world were shut out. The +girl figure in the blue cloak and hood was absolutely alone. She +descended till she reached a point where a little stream had been turned +into a stone trough for cattle. Above it stood a gnarled and solitary +thorn. Catherine sank down on a rock at the foot of the tree. It was a +seat she knew well; she had lingered there with her father; she had +thought and prayed there as girl and woman; she had wrestled there often +with despondency or grief, or some of those subtle spiritual temptations +which were all her pure youth had known, till the inner light had dawned +again, and the humble enraptured soul could almost have traced amid the +shadows of that dappled moorland world, between her and the clouds, the +white stoles and 'sleeping wings' of ministering spirits. + +But no wrestle had ever been so hard as this. And with what fierce +suddenness had it come upon her! She looked back over the day with +bewilderment. She could see dimly that the Catherine who had started on +that Shanmoor walk had been full of vague misgivings other than those +concerned with a few neglected duties. There had been an undefined sense +of unrest, of difference, of broken equilibrium. She had shown it in the +way in which at first she had tried to keep herself and Robert Elsmere +apart. + +And then; beyond the departure from Shanmoor she seemed to lose the +thread of her own history. Memory was drowned in a feeling to which the +resisting soul as yet would give no name. She laid her head on her knees +trembling. She heard again the sweet imperious tones with which he broke +down her opposition about the cloak; she felt again the grasp of his +steadying hand on hers. + +But it was only for a very few minutes that she drifted thus. She raised +her head again, scourging herself in shame and self-reproach, +recapturing the empire of the soul with a strong effort. She set herself +to a stern analysis of the whole situation. Clearly Mrs. Thornburgh and +her sisters had been aware for some indefinite time that Mr. Elsmere had +been showing a peculiar interest in her. _Their_ eyes had been open. She +realised now with hot cheeks how many meetings and _tete-a-tetes_ had +been managed for her and Elsmere, and how complacently she had fallen +into Mrs. Thornburgh's snares. + +'Have I encouraged him?' she asked herself sternly. + +'Yes,' cried the smarting conscience. + +'Can I marry him?' + +'No,' said conscience again; 'not without deserting your post, not +without betraying your trust.' + +What post? What trust? Ah, conscience was ready enough with the answer. +Was it not just ten years since, as a girl of sixteen, prematurely old +and thoughtful, she had sat beside her father's deathbed, while her +delicate hysterical mother, in a state of utter collapse, was kept away +from him by the doctors? She could see the drawn face, the restless +melancholy eyes. 'Catherine, my darling, you are the strong one. They +will look to you. Support them.' And she could see in imagination her +own young face pressed against the pillows. 'Yes, father, +always--always!'--'Catherine, life is harder, the narrow way narrower +than ever. I die'--and memory caught still the piteous, long-drawn +breath by which the voice was broken--'in much--much perplexity about +many things. You have a clear soul, an iron will. Strengthen the others. +Bring them safe to the day of account.'--'Yes, father, with God's help. +Oh, with God's help!' + +That long-past dialogue is clear and sharp to her now, as though it were +spoken afresh in her ears. And how has she kept her pledge? She looks +back humbly on her life of incessant devotion, on the tie of long +dependence which has bound to her her weak and widowed mother, on her +relations to her sisters, the efforts she has made to train them in the +spirit of her father's life and beliefs. + +Have those efforts reached their term? Can it be said in any sense that +her work is done, her promise kept? + +Oh, no--no! she cries to herself with vehemence. Her mother depends on +her every day and hour for protection, comfort, enjoyment. The girls are +at the opening of life,--Agnes twenty, Rose eighteen, with all +experience to come. And Rose---- Ah! at the thought of Rose, Catherine's +heart sinks deeper and deeper--she feels a culprit before her father's +memory. What is it has gone so desperately wrong with her training of +the child? Surely she has given love enough, anxious thought enough, and +here is Rose only fighting to be free from the yoke of her father's +wishes, from the galling pressure of the family tradition! + +No. Her task has just now reached its most difficult, its most critical, +moment. How can she leave it? Impossible. + +What claim can she put against these supreme claims--of her promise, her +mother's and sisters' need? + +_His_ claim? Oh, no--no! She admits with soreness and humiliation +unspeakable that she has done him wrong. If he loves her she has opened +the way thereto; she confesses in her scrupulous honesty that when the +inevitable withdrawal comes she will have given him cause to think of +her hardly, slightingly. She flinches painfully under the thought. But +it does not alter the matter. This girl, brought up in the austerest +school of Christian self-government, knows nothing of the divine rights +of passion. Half modern literature is based upon them. Catherine Leyburn +knew of no supreme right but the right of God to the obedience of man. + +Oh, and besides--besides--it is impossible that he should care so very +much. The time is so short--there is so little in her, comparatively, to +attract a man of such resource, such attainments, such access to the +best things of life. + +She cannot--in a kind of terror--she _will_ not, believe in her own +love-worthiness, in her own power to deal a lasting wound. + +Then her _own_ claim? Has she any claim, has the poor bounding heart +that she cannot silence, do what she will, through all this strenuous +debate, no claim to satisfaction, to joy? + +She locks her hands round her knees, conscious, poor soul, that the +worst struggle is _here_, the quickest agony _here_. But she does not +waver for an instant. And her weapons are all ready. The inmost soul of +her is a fortress well stored, whence at any moment the mere personal +craving of the natural man can be met, repulsed, slain. + +'_Man approacheth so much the nearer unto God the farther he departeth +from all earthly comfort._' + +'_If thou couldst perfectly annihilate thyself and empty thyself of all +created love, then should I be constrained to flow into thee with +greater abundance of grace._' + +'_When thou lookest unto the creature the sight of the Creator is +withdrawn from thee._' + +'_Learn in all things to overcome thyself for the love of thy +Creator...._' + +She presses the sentence she has so often meditated in her long solitary +walks about the mountains into her heart. And one fragment of George +Herbert especially rings in her ears, solemnly, funereally-- + + 'Thy Saviour sentenced joy!' + +Ay, sentenced it for ever--the personal craving, the selfish need, that +must be filled at any cost. In the silence of the descending night +Catherine quietly, with tears, carried out that sentence, and slew her +young new-born joy at the feet of the Master. + +She stayed where she was for a while after this crisis in a kind of +bewilderment and stupor, but maintaining a perfect outward tranquillity. +Then there was a curious little epilogue. + +'It is all over,' she said to herself tenderly. 'But he has taught me so +much--he has been so good to me--he is so good! Let me take to my heart +some counsel--some word of his, and obey it sacredly--silently--for +these days' sake.' + +Then she fell thinking again, and she remembered their talk about Rose. +How often she had pondered it since! In this intense trance of feeling +it breaks upon her finally that he is right. May it not be that he with +his clearer thought, his wider knowledge of life, has laid his finger on +the weak point in her guardianship of her sisters? 'I have tried to +stifle her passion,' she thought, 'to push it out of the way as a +hindrance. Ought I not rather to have taught her to make of it a step +in the ladder--to have moved her to bring her gifts to the altar? Oh, +let me take his word for it--be ruled by him in this one thing, once!' + +She bowed her face on her knees again. It seemed to her that she had +thrown herself at Elsmere's feet, that her cheek was pressed against +that young brown hand of his. How long the moment lasted she never knew. +When at last she rose stiff and weary, darkness was overtaking even the +lingering northern twilight. The angry clouds had dropped lower on the +moors; a few sheep beside the glimmering stone trough showed dimly +white; the night wind was sighing through the untenanted valley and the +scanty branches of the thorn. White mists lay along the hollow of the +dale; they moved weirdly under the breeze. She could have fancied them a +troop of wraiths to whom she had flung her warm crushed heart, and who +were bearing it away to burial. + +As she came slowly over the pass and down the Whindale side of the fell +a clear purpose was in her mind. Agnes had talked to her only that +morning of Rose and Rose's desire, and she had received the news with +her habitual silence. + +The house was lit up when she returned. Her mother had gone upstairs. +Catherine went to her, but even Mrs. Leyburn discovered that she looked +worn out, and she was sent off to bed. She went along the passage +quickly to Rose's room, listening a moment at the door. Yes, Rose was +inside, crooning some German song, and apparently alone. She knocked and +went in. + +Rose was sitting on the edge of her bed, a white dressing-gown over her +shoulders, her hair in a glorious confusion all about her. She was +swaying backwards and forwards dreamily singing, and she started up when +she saw Catherine. + +'Roeschen,' said the elder sister, going up to her with a tremor of +heart, and putting her motherly arms round the curly golden hair and the +half-covered shoulders, 'you never told me of that letter from +Manchester, but Agnes did. Did you think, Roeschen, I would never let you +have your way? Oh, I am not so hard! I may have been wrong--I think I +have been wrong; you shall do what you will, Roeschen. If you want to go, +I will ask mother.' + +Rose, pushing herself away with one hand, stood staring. She was struck +dumb by this sudden breaking down of Catherine's long resistance. And +what a strange white Catherine! What did it mean? Catherine withdrew her +arms with a little sigh and moved away. + +'I just came to tell you that, Roeschen,' she said, 'but I am very tired +and must not stay.' + +Catherine 'very tired'! Rose thought the skies must be falling. + +'Cathie!' she cried, leaping forward just as her sister gained the door. +'Oh, Cathie, you are an angel, and I am a nasty, odious little wretch. +But oh, tell me, what is the matter?' + +And she flung her strong young arms round Catherine with a passionate +strength. + +The elder sister struggled to release herself. + +'Let me go, Rose,' she said in a low voice. 'Oh, you _must_ let me go!' + +And wrenching herself free, she drew her hand over her eyes as though +trying to drive away the mist from them. + +'Good-night! Sleep well.' + +And she disappeared, shutting the door noiselessly after her. Rose stood +staring a moment, and then swept off her feet by a flood of many +feelings--remorse, love, fear, sympathy--threw herself face downwards on +her bed and burst into a passion of tears. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Catherine was much perplexed as to how she was to carry out her +resolution; she pondered over it through much of the night. She was +painfully anxious to make Elsmere understand without a scene, without a +definite proposal and a definite rejection. It was no use letting things +drift. Something brusque and marked there must be. She quietly made her +dispositions. + +It was long after the gray vaporous morning stole on the hills before +she fell lightly, restlessly asleep. To her healthful youth a sleepless +night was almost unknown. She wondered through the long hours of it, +whether now, like other women, she had had her story, passed through her +one supreme moment, and she thought of one or two worthy old maids she +knew in the neighbourhood with a new and curious pity. Had any of them, +too, gone down into Marrisdale and come up widowed indeed? + +All through, no doubt, there was a certain melancholy pride in her own +spiritual strength. 'It was not mine,' she would have said with perfect +sincerity, 'but God's.' Still, whatever its source, it had been there at +command, and the reflection carried with it a sad sense of security. It +was as though a soldier after his first skirmish should congratulate +himself on being bulletproof. + +To be sure, there was an intense trouble and disquiet in the thought +that she and Mr. Elsmere must meet again, probably many times. The +period of his original invitation had been warmly extended by the +Thornburghs. She believed he meant to stay another week or ten days in +the valley. But in the spiritual exaltation of the night she felt +herself equal to any conflict, any endurance, and she fell asleep, the +hands clasped on her breast expressing a kind of resolute patience, like +those of some old sepulchral monument. + +The following morning Elsmere examined the clouds and the barometer with +abnormal interest. The day was sunless and lowering, but not raining, +and he represented to Mrs. Thornburgh, with a hypocritical assumption of +the practical man, that with rugs and mackintoshes it was possible to +picnic on the dampest grass. But he could not make out the vicar's wife. +She was all sighs and flightiness. She 'supposed they could go,' and +'didn't see what good it would do them'; she had twenty different views, +and all of them more or less mixed up with pettishness, as to the best +place for a picnic on a gray day; and at last she grew so difficult that +Robert suspected something desperately wrong with the household, and +withdrew lest male guests might be in the way. Then she pursued him into +the study and thrust a _Spectator_ into his hands, begging him to convey +it to Burwood. She asked it lugubriously with many sighs, her cap much +askew. Robert could have kissed her, curls and all, one moment for +suggesting the errand, and the next could almost have signed her +committal to the county lunatic asylum with a clear conscience. What an +extraordinary person it was! + +Off he went, however, with his _Spectator_ under his arm, whistling. +Mrs. Thornburgh caught the sounds through an open window, and tore the +flannel across she was preparing for a mothers' meeting with a noise +like the rattle of musketry. Whistling! She would like to know what +grounds he had for it, indeed! She always knew--she always said, and she +would go on saying--that Catherine Leyburn would die an old maid. + +Meanwhile Robert had strolled across to Burwood with the lightest heart. +By way of keeping all his anticipations within the bounds of strict +reason, he told himself that it was impossible he should see 'her' in +the morning. She was always busy in the morning. + +He approached the house as a Catholic might approach a shrine. That was +her window, that upper casement with the little Banksia rose twining +round it. One night, when he and the vicar had been out late on the +hills, he had seen a light streaming from it across the valley, and had +thought how the mistress of the maiden solitude within shone 'in a +naughty world.' + +In the drive he met Mrs. Leyburn, who was strolling about the garden. +She at once informed him with much languid plaintiveness that Catherine +had gone to Whinborough for the day, and would not be able to join the +picnic. + +Elsmere stood still. + +'_Gone!_' he cried. 'But it was all arranged with her yesterday!' Mrs. +Leyburn shrugged her shoulders. She too was evidently much put out. + +'So I told her. But you know, Mr. Elsmere'--and the gentle widow dropped +her voice as though communicating a secret--'when Catherine's once made +up her mind, you may as well try to dig away High Fell as move her. She +asked me to tell Mrs. Thornburgh--will you, please?--that she found it +was her day for the orphan asylum, and one or two other pieces of +business, and she must go.' + +'_Mrs. Thornburgh!_' And not a word for him--for _him_ to whom she had +given her promise? She had gone to Whinborough to avoid him, and she had +gone in the brusquest way, that it might be unmistakable. + +The young man stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his long +coat, hearing with half an ear the remarks that Mrs. Leyburn was making +to him about the picnic. Was the wretched thing to come off after all? + +He was too proud and sore to suggest an alternative. But Mrs. Thornburgh +managed that for him. When he got back, he told the vicar in the hall of +Miss Leyburn's flight in the fewest possible words, and then his long +legs vanished up the stairs in a twinkling, and the door of his room +shut behind him. A few minutes afterwards Mrs. Thornburgh's shrill voice +was heard in the hall calling to the servant. + +'Sarah, let the hamper alone. Take out the chickens.' + +And a minute after the vicar came up to his door. + +'Elsmere, Mrs. Thornburgh thinks the day is too uncertain; better put it +off.' + +To which Elsmere from inside replied with a vigorous assent. The vicar +slowly descended to tackle his spouse, who seemed to have established +herself for the morning in his sanctum, though the parish accounts were +clamouring to be done, and this morning in the week belonged to them by +immemorial usage. + +But Mrs. Thornburgh was unmanageable. She sat opposite to him with one +hand on each knee, solemnly demanding of him if _he_ knew what was to be +done with young women nowadays, because _she_ didn't. + +The tormented vicar declined to be drawn into so illimitable a subject, +recommended patience, declared that it might be all a mistake, and tried +hard to absorb himself in the consideration of 2s. 8d. _plus_ 2s. 11d. +_minus_ 9d. + +'And I suppose, William,' said his wife to him at last, with withering +sarcasm, 'that you'd sit by and see Catherine break that young man's +heart, and send him back to his mother no better than he came here, in +spite of all the beef-tea and jelly Sarah and I have been putting into +him, and never lift a finger. You'd see his life _blasted_ and you'd do +nothing--nothing, I suppose.' + +And she fixed him with a fiercely interrogative eye. + +'Of course,' cried the vicar, roused; 'I should think so. What good did +an outsider ever get by meddling in a love affair? Take care of +yourself, Emma. If the girl doesn't care for him, you can't make her.' + +The vicar's wife rose, the upturned corners of her mouth saying +unutterable things. + +'Doesn't care for him!' she echoed in a tone which implied that her +husband's headpiece was past praying for. + +'Yes, doesn't care for him!' said the vicar, nettled. 'What else should +make her give him a snub like this?' + +Mrs. Thornburgh looked at him again with exasperation. Then a curious +expression stole into her eyes. + +'Oh, the Lord only knows!' she said, with a hasty freedom of speech +which left the vicar feeling decidedly uncomfortable as she shut the +door after her. + +However, if the Higher Powers alone _knew_, Mrs. Thornburgh was +convinced that she could make a very shrewd guess at the causes of +Catherine's behaviour. In her opinion it was all pure 'cussedness.' +Catherine Leyburn had always conducted her life on principles entirely +different from those of other people. Mrs. Thornburgh wholly denied, as +she sat bridling by herself, that it was a Christian necessity to make +yourself and other people uncomfortable. Yet this was what this perverse +young woman was always doing. Here was a charming young man who had +fallen in love with her at first sight, and had done his best to make +the fact plain to her in the most chivalrous devoted ways. Catherine +encourages him, walks with him, talks with him, is for a whole three +weeks more gay and cheerful and more like other girls than she has ever +been known to be, and then, at the end of it, just when everybody is +breathlessly awaiting the natural _denouement_, goes off to spend the +day that should have been the day of her betrothal in pottering about +orphan asylums, leaving everybody, but especially the poor young man, to +look ridiculous! No, Mrs. Thornburgh had no patience with her--none at +all. It was all because she would not be happy like anybody else, but +must needs set herself up to be peculiar. Why not live on a pillar, and +go into hair-shirts at once? Then the rest of the world would know what +to be at. + +Meanwhile Rose was in no small excitement. While her mother and Elsmere +had been talking in the garden she had been discreetly waiting in the +back behind the angle of the house, and when she saw Elsmere walk off +she followed him with eager sympathetic eyes. + +'Poor fellow!' she said to herself, but this time with the little tone +of patronage which a girl of eighteen, conscious of graces and good +looks, never shrinks from assuming towards an elder male, especially a +male in love with some one else. 'I wonder whether he thinks he knows +anything about Catherine.' + +But her own feeling to-day was very soft and complex. Yesterday it had +been all hot rebellion. To-day it was all remorse and wondering +curiosity. What had brought Catherine into her room, with that white +face, and that bewildering change of policy? What had made her do this +brusque, discourteous thing to-day? Rose, having been delayed by the +loss of one of her goloshes in a bog, had been once near her and Elsmere +during that dripping descent from Shanmoor. They had been so clearly +absorbed in one another that she had fled on guiltily to Agnes, golosh +in hand, without waiting to put it on; confident, however, that neither +Elsmere nor Catherine had been aware of her little adventure. And at the +Shanmoor tea Catherine herself had discussed the picnic, offering, in +fact, to guide the party to a particular ghyll in High Fell, better +known to her than any one else. + +'Oh, of course it's our salvation in this world and the next that's in +the way,' thought Rose, sitting crouched up in a grassy nook in the +garden, her shoulders up to her ears, her chin in her hands. 'I wish to +goodness Catherine wouldn't think so much about mine, at any rate. I +hate,' added this incorrigible young person--'I hate being the third +part of a "moral obstacle" against my will. I declare I don't believe we +should any of us go to perdition even if Catherine did marry. And what a +wretch I am to think so after last night! Oh dear, I wish she'd let me +do something for her; I wish she'd ask me to black her boots for her, or +put in her tuckers, or tidy her drawers for her, or anything worse +still, and I'd do it and welcome!' + +It was getting uncomfortably serious all round, Rose admitted. But there +was one element of comedy besides Mrs. Thornburgh, and that was Mrs. +Leyburn's unconsciousness. + +'Mamma is too good,' thought the girl, with a little ripple of laughter. +'She takes it as a matter of course that all the world should admire us, +and she'd scorn to believe that anybody did it from interested motives.' + +Which was perfectly true. Mrs. Leyburn was too devoted to her daughters +to feel any fidgety interest in their marrying. Of course the most +eligible persons would be only too thankful to marry them when the +moment came. Meanwhile her devotion was in no need of the confirming +testimony of lovers. It was sufficient in itself, and kept her mind +gently occupied from morning till night. If it had occurred to her to +notice that Robert Elsmere had been paying special attentions to any one +in the family, she would have suggested with perfect _naivete_ that it +was herself. For he had been to her the very pink of courtesy and +consideration, and she was of opinion that 'poor Richard's views' of the +degeneracy of Oxford men would have been modified could he have seen +this particular specimen. + +Later on in the morning Rose had been out giving Bob a run, while Agnes +drove with her mother. On the way home she overtook Elsmere returning +from an errand for the vicar. + +'It is not so bad,' she said to him, laughing, pointing to the sky; 'we +really might have gone.' + +'Oh, it would have been cheerless,' he said simply. His look of +depression amazed her. She felt a quick movement of sympathy, a wild +wish to bid him cheer up and fight it out. If she could just have shown +him Catherine as she looked last night! Why couldn't she talk it out +with him? Absurd conventions! She had half a mind to try. + +But the grave look of the man beside her deterred even her young +half-childish audacity. + +'Catherine will have a good day for all her business,' she said +carelessly. + +He assented quietly. Oh, after that hand-shake on the bridge yesterday +she could not stand it,--she must give him a hint how the land lay. + +'I suppose she will spend the afternoon with Aunt Ellen. Mr. Elsmere, +what did you think of Aunt Ellen?' + +Elsmere started, and could not help smiling into the young girl's +beautiful eyes, which were radiant with fun. + +'A most estimable person,' he said. 'Are you on good terms with her, +Miss Rose?' + +'Oh dear, no!' she said, with a little face. 'I'm not a Leyburn; I wear +aesthetic dresses, and Aunt Ellen has "special leadings of the spirit" to +the effect that the violin is a soul-destroying instrument. Oh +dear!'--and the girl's mouth twisted--'it's alarming to think, if +Catherine hadn't been Catherine, how like Aunt Ellen she might have +been!' + +She flashed a mischievous look at him, and thrilled as she caught the +sudden change of expression in his face. + +'Your sister has the Westmoreland strength in her--one can see that,' he +said, evidently speaking with some difficulty. + +'Strength! Oh yes. Catherine has plenty of strength,' cried Rose, and +then was silent a moment. 'You know, Mr. Elsmere,' she went on at last, +obeying some inward impulse--'or perhaps you don't know--that, at home, +we are all Catherine's creatures. She does exactly what she likes with +us. When my father died she was sixteen, Agnes was ten, I was eight. We +came here to live--we were not very rich of course, and mamma wasn't +strong. Well, she did everything: she taught us--we have scarcely had +any teacher but her since then; she did most of the housekeeping; and +you can see for yourself what she does for the neighbours and poor folk. +She is never ill, she is never idle, she always knows her own mind. We +owe everything we are, almost everything we have, to her. Her nursing +has kept mamma alive through one or two illnesses. Our lawyer says he +never knew any business affairs better managed than ours, and Catherine +manages them. The one thing she never takes any care or thought for is +herself. What we should do without her I can't imagine; and yet +sometimes I think if it goes on much longer none of us three will have +any character of our own left. After all, you know, it may be good for +the weak people to struggle on their own feet, if the strong would only +believe it, instead of always being carried. The strong people _needn't_ +be always trampling on themselves,--if they only knew----' + +She stopped abruptly, flushing scarlet over her own daring. Her eyes +were feverishly bright, and her voice vibrated under a strange mixture +of feelings--sympathy, reverence, and a passionate inner admiration +struggling with rebellion and protest. + +They had reached the gate of the vicarage. Elsmere stopped and looked at +his companion with a singular lightening of expression. He saw perfectly +that the young impetuous creature understood him, that she felt his +cause was not prospering, and that she wanted to help him. He saw that +what she meant by this picture of their common life was that no one need +expect Catherine Leyburn to be an easy prey; that she wanted to impress +on him in her eager way that such lives as her sister's were not to be +gathered at a touch, without difficulty, from the branch that bears +them. She was exhorting him to courage,--nay, he caught more than +exhortation--a sort of secret message from her bright excited looks and +incoherent speech that made his heart leap. But pride and delicacy +forbade him to put his feeling into words. + +'You don't hope to persuade me that your sister reckons _you_ among the +weak persons of the world?' he said, laughing, his hand on the gate. +Rose could have blessed him for thus turning the conversation. What on +earth could she have said next? + +She stood bantering a little longer, and then ran off with Bob. + +Elsmere passed the rest of the morning wandering meditatively over the +cloudy fells. After all he was only where he was, before the blessed +madness, the upflooding hope, nay, almost certainty, of yesterday. His +attack had been for the moment repulsed. He gathered from Rose's manner +that Catherine's action with regard to the picnic had not been unmeaning +nor accidental, as on second thoughts he had been half-trying to +persuade himself. Evidently those about her felt it to be ominous. Well, +then, at worst, when they met they would meet on a different footing, +with a sense of something critical between them. Oh, if he did but know +a little more clearly how he stood! He spent a noonday hour on a gray +rock on the side of the fell between Whindale and Marrisdale, studying +the path opposite, the stepping-stones, the bit of white road. The +minutes passed in a kind of trance of memory. Oh, that soft child-like +movement to him, after his speech about her father! that heavenly +yielding and self-forgetfulness which shone in her every look and +movement as she stood balancing on the stepping-stones! If after all she +should prove cruel to him, would he not have a legitimate grievance, a +heavy charge to fling against her maiden gentleness? He trampled on the +notion. Let her do with him as she would, she would be his saint always, +unquestioned, unarraigned. + +But with such a memory in his mind it was impossible that any man, least +of all a man of Elsmere's temperament, could be very hopeless. Oh yes, +he had been rash, foolhardy. Do such divine creatures stoop to mortal +men as easily as he had dreamt? He recognises all the difficulties, he +enters into the force of all the ties that bind her--or imagines that he +does. But he is a man and her lover: and if she loves him, in the end +love will conquer--must conquer. For his more modern sense, deeply +Christianised as it is, assumes almost without argument the sacredness +of passion and its claim--wherein a vast difference between himself and +that solitary wrestler in Marrisdale. + +Meanwhile he kept all his hopes and fears to himself. Mrs. Thornburgh +was dying to talk to him; but though his mobile, boyish temperament made +it impossible for him to disguise his change of mood, there was in him a +certain natural dignity which life greatly developed, but which made it +always possible for him to hold his own against curiosity and +indiscretion. Mrs. Thornburgh had to hold her peace. As for the vicar, +he developed what were for him a surprising number of new topics of +conversation, and in the late afternoon took Elsmere a run up the fells +to the nearest fragment of the Roman road which runs, with such +magnificent disregard of the humours of Mother Earth, over the very top +of High Street towards Penrith and Carlisle. + +Next day it looked as though after many waverings the characteristic +Westmoreland weather had descended upon them in good earnest. From early +morn till late evening the valley was wrapped in damp clouds or moving +rain, which swept down from the west through the great basin of the +hills, and rolled along the course of the river, wrapping trees and +fells and houses in the same misty cheerless drizzle. Under the outward +pall of rain, indeed, the valley was renewing its summer youth; the +river was swelling with an impetuous music through all its dwindled +channels; the crags flung out white waterfalls again, which the heat had +almost dried away; and by noon the whole green hollow was vocal with the +sounds of water--water flashing and foaming in the river, water leaping +downwards from the rocks, water dripping steadily from the larches and +sycamores and the slate-eaves of the houses. + +Elsmere sat indoors reading up the history of the parish system of +Surrey, or pretending to do so. He sat in a corner of the study, where +he and the vicar protected each other against Mrs. Thornburgh. That good +woman would open the door once and again in the morning, and put her +head through in search of prey; but on being confronted with two +studious men instead of one, each buried up to the ears in folios, she +would give vent to an irritable cough and retire discomfited. In reality +Elsmere was thinking of nothing in the world but what Catherine Leyburn +might be doing that morning. Judging a North countrywoman by the +pusillanimous Southern standard, he found himself glorying in the +weather. She could not wander far from him to-day. + +After the early dinner he escaped, just as the vicar's wife was devising +an excuse on which to convey both him and herself to Burwood, and +sallied forth with a mackintosh for a rush down the Whinborough road. It +was still raining, but the clouds showed a momentary lightening, and a +few gleams of watery sunshine brought out every now and then that +sparkle on the trees, that iridescent beauty of distance and atmosphere +which goes so far to make a sensitive spectator forget the petulant +abundance of mountain rain. Elsmere passed Burwood with a thrill. Should +he or should he not present himself? Let him push on a bit and think. So +on he swung, measuring his tall frame against the gusts, spirits and +masculine energy rising higher with every step. At last the passion of +his mood had wrestled itself out with the weather, and he turned back +once more determined to seek and find her, to face his fortunes like a +man. The warm rain beating from the west struck on his uplifted face. He +welcomed it as a friend. Rain and storm had opened to him the gates of a +spiritual citadel. What could ever wholly close it against him any more? +He felt so strong, so confident! Patience and courage! + +Before him the great hollow of High Fell was just coming out from the +white mists surging round it. A shaft of sunlight lay across its upper +end, and he caught a marvellous apparition of a sunlit valley hung in +air, a pale strip of blue above it, a white thread of stream wavering +through it, and all around it and below it the rolling rain-clouds. + +Suddenly between him and that enchanter's vision he saw a dark slim +figure against the mists, walking before him along the road. It was +Catherine--Catherine just emerged from a footpath across the fields, +battling with wind and rain, and quite unconscious of any spectator. Oh, +what a sudden thrill was that! what a leaping together of joy and dread, +which sent the blood to his heart! Alone--they two alone again--in the +wild Westmoreland mists, and half a mile at least of winding road +between them and Burwood. He flew after her, dreading, and yet longing +for the moment when he should meet her eyes. Fortune had suddenly given +this hour into his hands; he felt it open upon him like that mystic +valley in the clouds. + +Catherine heard the hurrying steps behind her and turned. There was an +evident start when she caught sight of her pursuer--a quick change of +expression. She wore a close-fitting waterproof dress and cap. Her hair +was lightly loosened, her cheek freshened by the storm. He came up with +her; he took her hand, his eyes dancing with the joy he could not hide. + +'What are you made of, I wonder!' he said gaily. 'Nothing, certainly, +that minds weather.' + +'No Westmoreland native thinks of staying at home for this,' she said +with her quiet smile, moving on beside him as she spoke. + +He looked down upon her with an indescribable mixture of feelings. No +stiffness, no coldness in her manner--only the even gentleness which +always marked her out from others. He felt as though yesterday were +blotted out, and would not for worlds have recalled it to her or +reproached her with it. Let it be as though they were but carrying on +the scene of the stepping-stones. + +'Look,' he said, pointing to the west; 'have you been watching that +magical break in the clouds?' + +Her eyes followed his to the delicate picture hung high among the moving +mists. + +'Ah,' she exclaimed, her face kindling, 'that is one of our loveliest +effects, and one of the rarest. You are lucky to have seen it.' + +'I am conceited enough,' he said joyously, 'to feel as if some enchanter +were at work up there drawing pictures on the mists for my special +benefit. How welcome the rain is! As I am afraid you have heard me say +before, what new charm it gives to your valley!' + +There was something in the buoyancy and force of his mood that seemed to +make Catherine shrink into herself. She would not pursue the subject of +Westmoreland. She asked with a little stiffness whether he had good news +from Mrs. Elsmere. + +'Oh, yes. As usual, she is doing everything for me,' he said, smiling. +'It is disgraceful that I should be idling here while she is struggling +with carpenters and paperers, and puzzling out the decorations of the +drawing-room. She writes to me in a fury about the word "artistic." She +declares even the little upholsterer at Churton hurls it at her every +other minute, and that if it weren't for me she would select everything +as frankly, primevally hideous as she could find, just to spite him. As +it is, he has so warped her judgment that she has left the sitting-room +papers till I arrive. For the drawing-room she avows a passionate +preference for one all cabbage-roses and no stalks; but she admits that +it may be exasperation. She wants your sister, clearly, to advise her. +By the way,' and his voice changed, 'the vicar told me last night that +Miss Rose is going to Manchester for the winter to study. He heard it +from Miss Agnes, I think. The news interested me greatly after our +conversation.' + +He looked at her with the most winning interrogative eyes. His whole +manner implied that everything which touched and concerned her touched +and concerned him; and, moreover, that she had given him in some sort a +right to share her thoughts and difficulties. Catherine struggled with +herself. + +'I trust it may answer,' she said in a low voice. + +But she would say no more, and he felt rebuffed. His buoyancy began to +desert him. + +'It must be a great trial to Mrs. Elsmere,' she said presently with an +effort, once more steering away from herself and her concerns, 'this +going back to her old home.' + +'It is. My father's long struggle for life in that house is a very +painful memory. I wished her to put it off till I could go with her, but +she declared she would rather get over the first week or two by herself. +How I should like you to know my mother, Miss Leyburn!' + +At this she could not help meeting his glance and smile, and answering +them, though with a kind of constraint most unlike her. + +'I hope I may some day see Mrs. Elsmere,' she said. + +'It is one of my strongest wishes,' he answered hurriedly, 'to bring you +together.' + +The words were simple enough; the tone was full of emotion. He was fast +losing control of himself. She felt it through every nerve, and a sort +of wild dread seized her of what he might say next. Oh, she must, she +must prevent it! + +'Your mother was with you most of your Oxford life, was she not?' she +said, forcing herself to speak in her most everyday tones. + +He controlled himself with a mighty effort. + +'Since I became a Fellow. We have been alone in the world so long. We +have never been able to do without each other.' + +'Isn't it wonderful to you?' said Catherine, after a little electric +pause--and her voice was steadier and clearer than it had been since the +beginning of their conversation--'how little the majority of sons and +daughters regard their parents when they come to grow up and want to +live their own lives? The one thought seems to be to get rid of them, to +throw off their claims, to cut them adrift, to escape them--decently, of +course, and under many pretexts, but still to escape them. All the long +years of devotion and self-sacrifice go for nothing.' + +He looked at her quickly--a troubled, questioning look. + +'It is so, often; but not, I think, where the parents have truly +understood their problem. The real difficulty for father and mother is +not childhood, but youth; how to get over that difficult time when the +child passes into the man or woman, and a relation of governor and +governed should become the purest and closest of friendships. You and I +have been lucky.' + +'Yes,' she said, looking straight before her, and still speaking with a +distinctness which caught his ear painfully, 'and so are the greater +debtors! There is no excuse, I think, for any child, least of all for +the child who has had years of understanding love to look back upon, if +it puts its own claim first; if it insists on satisfying itself, when +there is age and weakness appealing to it on the other side, when it is +still urgently needed to help those older, to shield those younger, than +itself. Its business first of all is to pay its debt, whatever the +cost.' + +The voice was low, but it had the clear vibrating ring of steel. +Robert's face had darkened visibly. + +'But, surely,' he cried, goaded by a new stinging sense of revolt and +pain--'surely the child may make a fatal mistake if it imagines that its +own happiness counts for nothing in the parents' eyes. What parent but +must suffer from the starving of the child's nature? What have mother +and father been working for, after all, but the perfecting of the +child's life? Their longing is that it should fulfil itself in all +directions. New ties, new affections, on the child's part, mean the +enriching of the parent. What a cruel fate for the elder generation, to +make it the jailer and burden of the younger!' + +He spoke with heat and anger, with a sense of dashing himself against an +obstacle, and a dumb despairing certainty rising at the heart of him. + +'Ah, that is what we are so ready to say,' she answered, her breath +coming more quickly, and her eye meeting his with a kind of antagonism +in it; 'but it is all sophistry. The only safety lies in following out +the plain duty. The parent wants the child's help and care, the child is +bound to give it; that is all it needs to know. If it forms new ties, it +belongs to them, not to the old ones; the old ones must come to be +forgotten and put aside.' + +'So you would make all life a sacrifice to the past?' he cried, +quivering under the blow she was dealing him. + +'No, not all life,' she said, struggling hard to preserve her perfect +calm of manner: he could not know that she was trembling from head to +foot. 'There are many for whom it is easy and right to choose their own +way; their happiness robs no one. There are others on whom a charge has +been laid from their childhood, a charge perhaps'--and her voice +faltered at last--'impressed on them by dying lips, which must govern, +possess their lives; which it would be baseness, treason, to betray. We +are not here only to be happy.' + +And she turned to him deadly pale, the faintest, sweetest smile on her +lip. He was for the moment incapable of speech. He began phrase after +phrase, and broke them off. A whirlwind of feeling possessed him. The +strangeness, the unworldliness of what she had done struck him +singularly. He realised through every nerve that what she had just said +to him she had been bracing herself to say to him ever since their last +parting. And now he could not tell, or rather, blindly could not see, +whether she suffered in the saying it. A passionate protest rose in him, +not so much against her words as against her self-control. The man in +him rose up against the woman's unlooked-for, unwelcome strength. + +But as the hot words she had dared so much in her simplicity to avert +from them both were bursting from him, they were checked by a sudden +physical difficulty. A bit of road was under water. A little beck, +swollen by the rain, had overflowed, and for a few yards' distance the +water stood about eight inches deep from hedge to hedge. Robert had +splashed through the flood half an hour before, but it had risen rapidly +since then. He had to apply his mind to the practical task of finding a +way to the other side. + +'You must climb the bank,' he said, 'and get through into the field.' + +She assented mutely. He went first, drew her up the bank, forced his way +through the loosely growing hedge himself, and holding back some young +hazel saplings and breaking others, made an opening for her through +which she scrambled with bent head; then, stretching out his hand to +her, he made her submit to be helped down the steep bank on the other +side. Her straight young figure was just above him, her breath almost on +his cheek. + +'You talk of baseness and treason,' he began passionately, conscious of +a hundred wild impulses, as perforce she leant her light weight upon his +arm. 'Life is not so simple. It is so easy to sacrifice others with +one's self, to slay all claims in honour of one, instead of knitting the +new ones to the old. Is life to be allowed no natural expansion? Have +you forgotten that, in refusing the new bond for the old bond's sake, +the child may be simply wronging the parents, depriving them of another +affection, another support, which ought to have been theirs?' + +His tone was harsh, almost violent. It seemed to him that she grew +suddenly white, and he grasped her more firmly still. She reached the +level of the field, quickly withdrew her hand, and for a moment their +eyes met, her pale face raised to his. It seemed an age, so much was +said in that look. There was appeal on her side, passion on his. Plainly +she implored him to say no more, to spare her and himself. + +'In some cases,' she said, and her voice sounded strained and hoarse to +both of them, 'one cannot risk the old bond. One dare not trust one's +self--or circumstance. The responsibility is too great; one can but +follow the beaten path, cling to the one thread. But don't let us talk +of it any more. We must make for that gate, Mr. Elsmere. It will bring +us out on the road again close by home.' + +He was quelled. Speech suddenly became impossible to him. He was struck +again with that sense of a will firmer and more tenacious than his own, +which had visited him in a slight passing way on the first evening they +ever met, and now filled him with a kind of despair. As they pushed +silently along the edge of the dripping meadow, he noticed with a pang +that the stepping-stones lay just below them. The gleam of sun had died +away, the aerial valley in the clouds had vanished, and a fresh storm of +rain brought back the colour to Catherine's cheek. On their left hand +was the roaring of the river, on their right they could already hear the +wind moaning and tearing through the trees which sheltered Burwood. The +nature which an hour ago had seemed to him so full of stimulus and +exhilaration had taken to itself a note of gloom and mourning; for he +was at the age when Nature is the mere docile responsive mirror of the +spirit, when all her forces and powers are made for us, and are only +there to play chorus to our story. + +They reached the little lane leading to the gate of Burwood. She paused +at the foot of it. + +'You will come in and see my mother, Mr. Elsmere?' + +Her look expressed a yearning she could not crush. 'Your pardon, your +friendship,' it cried, with the usual futility of all good women under +the circumstances. But as he met it for one passionate instant, he +recognised fully that there was not a trace of yielding in it. At the +bottom of the softness there was the iron of resolution. + +'No, no; not now,' he said involuntarily: and she never forgot the +painful struggle of the face; 'good-bye.' He touched her hand without +another word, and was gone. + +She toiled up to the gate with difficulty, the gray rain-washed road, +the wall, the trees, swimming before her eyes. + +In the hall she came across Agnes, who caught hold of her with a start. + +'My dear Cathie! you have been walking yourself to death. You look like +a ghost. Come and have some tea at once.' + +And she dragged her into the drawing-room. Catherine submitted with all +her usual outward calm, faintly smiling at her sister's onslaught. But +she would not let Agnes put her down on the sofa. She stood with her +hand on the back of a chair. + +'The weather is very close and exhausting,' she said, gently lifting her +hand to her hat. But the hand dropped, and she sank heavily into the +chair. + +'Cathie, you are faint,' cried Agnes, running to her. + +Catherine waved her away, and, with an effort of which none but she +would have been capable, mastered the physical weakness. + +'I have been a long way, dear,' she said, as though in apology, 'and +there is no air. Yes, I will go upstairs and lie down a minute or two. +Oh no, don't come, I will be down for tea directly.' + +And refusing all help, she guided herself out of the room, her face the +colour of the foam on the beck outside. Agnes stood dumfoundered. Never +in her life before had she seen Catherine betray any such signs of +physical exhaustion. + +Suddenly Rose ran in, shut the door carefully behind her, and rushing up +to Agnes put her hands on her shoulders. + +'He has proposed to her, and she has said no!' + +'He? What, Mr. Elsmere? How on earth can you know?' + +'I saw them from upstairs come to the bottom of the lane. Then he rushed +on, and I have just met her on the stairs. It's as plain as the nose on +your face.' + +Agnes sat down bewildered. + +'It is hard on him,' she said at last. + +'Yes, it is _very_ hard on him!' cried Rose, pacing the room, her long +thin arms clasped behind her, her eyes flashing, 'for she loves him!' + +'Rose!' + +'She does, my dear, she does,' cried the girl, frowning. 'I know it in a +hundred ways.' + +Agnes ruminated. + +'And it's all because of us?' she said at last reflectively. + +'Of course! I put it to you, Agnes'--and Rose stood still with a tragic +air--'I put it to you, whether it isn't too bad that three unoffending +women should have such a role as this assigned them against their will!' + +The eloquence of eighteen was irresistible. Agnes buried her head in the +sofa cushion, and shook with a kind of helpless laughter. Rose meanwhile +stood in the window, her thin form drawn up to its full height, angry +with Agnes, and enraged with all the world. + +'It's absurd, it's insulting,' she exclaimed. 'I should imagine that you +and I, Agnes, were old enough and sane enough to look after mamma, put +out the stores, say our prayers, and prevent each other from running +away with adventurers! I won't be always in leading-strings. I won't +acknowledge that Catherine is bound to be an old maid to keep me in +order. I hate it! It is sacrifice run mad.' + +And Rose turned to her sister, the defiant head thrown back, a passion +of manifold protest in the girlish looks. + +'It is very easy, my dear, to be judge in one's own case,' replied Agnes +calmly, recovering herself. 'Suppose you tell Catherine some of these +home truths?' + +Rose collapsed at once. She sat down despondently, and fell, head +drooping, into a moody silence. Agnes watched her with a kind of +triumph. When it came to the point, she knew perfectly well that there +was not a will among them that could measure itself with any chance of +success against that lofty but unwavering will of Catherine's. Rose was +violent, and there was much reason in her violence. But as for her, she +preferred not to dash her head against stone walls. + +'Well, then, if you won't say them to Catherine, say them to mamma,' she +suggested presently, but half ironically. + +'Mamma is no good,' cried Rose angrily; 'why do you bring her in? +Catherine would talk her round in ten minutes.' + +Long after every one else in Burwood, even the chafing, excited Rose, +was asleep, Catherine in her dimly lighted room, where the stormy +north-west wind beat noisily against her window, was sitting in a low +chair, her head leaning against her bed, her little well-worn Testament +open on her knee. But she was not reading. Her eyes were shut; one hand +hung down beside her, and tears were raining fast and silently over her +cheeks. It was the stillest, most restrained weeping. She hardly knew +why she wept, she only knew that there was something within her which +must have its way. What did this inner smart and tumult mean, this +rebellion of the self against the will which had never yet found its +mastery fail it? It was as though from her childhood till now she had +lived in a moral world whereof the aims, the dangers, the joys, were all +she knew; and now the walls of this world were crumbling round her, and +strange lights, strange voices, strange colours were breaking through. +All the sayings of Christ which had lain closest to her heart for +years, to-night for the first time seem to her no longer sayings of +comfort or command, but sayings of fire and flame that burn their +coercing way through life and thought. We recite so glibly, 'He that +loseth his life shall save it;' and when we come to any of the common +crises of experience which are the source and the sanction of the words, +flesh and blood recoil. This girl amid her mountains had carried +religion as far as religion can be carried before it meets life in the +wrestle appointed it. The calm, simple outlines of things are blurring +before her eyes; the great placid deeps of the soul are breaking up. + +To the purest ascetic temper a struggle of this kind is hardly real. +Catherine felt a bitter surprise at her own pain. Yesterday a sort of +mystical exaltation upheld her. What had broken it down? + +Simply a pair of reproachful eyes, a pale protesting face. What trifles +compared to the awful necessities of an infinite obedience! And yet they +haunt her, till her heart aches for misery, till she only yearns to be +counselled, to be forgiven, to be at least understood. + +'Why, why am I so weak?' she cried in utter abasement of soul, and knew +not that in that weakness, or rather in the founts of character from +which it sprang, lay the innermost safeguard of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Robert was very nearly reduced to despair by the scene with Catherine we +have described. He spent a brooding and miserable hour in the vicar's +study afterwards, making up his mind as to what he should do. One phrase +of hers which had passed almost unnoticed in the shock of the moment was +now ringing in his ears, maddening him by a sense of joy just within his +reach, and yet barred away from him by an obstacle as strong as it was +intangible. '_We are not here only to be happy_,' she had said to him, +with a look of ethereal exaltation worthy of her namesake of Alexandria. +The words had slipped from her involuntarily in the spiritual tension of +her mood. They were now filling Robert Elsmere's mind with a tormenting, +torturing bliss. What could they mean? What had her paleness, her +evident trouble and weakness meant, but that the inmost self of hers was +his, was conquered; and that, but for the shadowy obstacle between them, +all would be well? + +As for the obstacle in itself, he did not admit its force for a moment. +No sane and practical man, least of all when that man happened to be +Catherine Leyburn's lover, could regard it as a binding obligation upon +her that she should sacrifice her own life and happiness to three +persons, who were in no evident moral straits, no physical or pecuniary +need, and who, as Rose incoherently put it, might very well be rather +braced than injured by the withdrawal of her strong support. + +But the obstacle of character--ah, there was a different matter! He +realised with despair the brooding scrupulous force of moral passion to +which her lonely life, her antecedents, and her father's nature working +in her had given so rare and marked a development. No temper in the +world is so little open to reason as the ascetic temper. How many a +lover and husband, how many a parent and friend, have realised to their +pain, since history began, the overwhelming attraction which all the +processes of self-annihilation have for a certain order of minds! +Robert's heart sank before the memory of that frail indomitable look, +that aspect of sad yet immovable conviction with which she had bade him +farewell. And yet, surely--surely under the willingness of the spirit +there had been a pitiful, a most womanly weakness of the flesh. Surely, +now memory reproduced the scene, she had been white--trembling: her +hand had rested on the moss-grown wall beside her for support. Oh, +why had he been so timid? why had he let that awe of her, which her +personality produced so readily, stand between them? why had he not +boldly caught her to himself, and, with all the eloquence of a +passionate nature, trampled on her scruples, marched through her +doubts, convinced--reasoned her into a blessed submission! + +'And I will do it yet!' he cried, leaping to his feet with a sudden +access of hope and energy. And he stood awhile looking out into the +rainy evening, all the keen irregular face and thin pliant form +hardening into the intensity of resolve, which had so often carried the +young tutor through an Oxford difficulty, breaking down antagonism and +compelling consent. + +At the high tea which represented the late dinner of the household he +was wary and self-possessed. Mrs. Thornburgh got out of him that he had +been for a walk, and had seen Catherine, but for all her ingenuities of +cross-examination she got nothing more. Afterwards, when he and the +vicar were smoking together, he proposed to Mr. Thornburgh that they two +should go off for a couple of days on a walking tour to Ullswater. + +'I want to go away,' he said, with a hand on the vicar's shoulder, '_and +I want to come back_.' The deliberation of the last words was not to be +mistaken. The vicar emitted a contented puff, looked the young man +straight in the eyes, and without another word began to plan a walk to +Patterdale _via_ High Street, Martindale, and Howtown, and back by +Haweswater. + +To Mrs. Thornburgh Robert announced that he must leave them on the +following Saturday, June 24. + +'You _have_ given me a good time, Cousin Emma,' he said to her, with a +bright friendliness which dumbfoundered her. A good time, indeed! with +everything begun and nothing finished; with two households thrown into +perturbation for a delusion, and a desirable marriage spoilt, all for +want of a little common sense and plain speaking, which _one_ person at +least in the valley could have supplied them with, had she not been +ignored and brow beaten on all sides. She contained herself, however, in +his presence, but the vicar suffered proportionately in the privacy of +the connubial chamber. He had never seen his wife so exasperated. To +think what might have been, what she might have done for the race, but +for the whims of two stuck-up, superior, impracticable young persons, +that would neither manage their own affairs nor allow other people to +manage them for them! The vicar behaved gallantly, kept the secret of +Elsmere's remark to himself like a man, and allowed himself certain +counsels against matrimonial meddling which plunged Mrs. Thornburgh into +well-simulated slumber. However, in the morning he was vaguely conscious +that some time in the visions of the night his spouse had demanded of +him peremptorily, 'When do you get back, William?' To the best of his +memory the vicar had sleepily murmured, 'Thursday'; and had then heard, +echoed through his dreams, a calculating whisper, 'He goes Saturday--one +clear day!' + +The following morning was gloomy but fine, and after breakfast the vicar +and Elsmere started off. Robert turned back at the top of the High Fell +pass and stood leaning on his alpenstock, sending a passionate farewell +to the gray distant house, the upper window, the copper beech in the +garden, the bit of winding road, while the vicar discreetly stepped on +northward, his eyes fixed on the wild regions of Martindale. + +Mrs. Thornburgh, left alone, absorbed herself to all appearance in the +school treat which was to come off in a fortnight, in a new set of +covers for the drawing-room, and in Sarah's love affairs, which were +always passing through some tragic phase or other, and into which Mrs. +Thornburgh was allowed a more unencumbered view than she was into +Catherine Leyburn's. Rose and Agnes dropped in now and then, and found +her not at all disposed to talk to them on the great event of the +day--Elsmere's absence and approaching departure. They cautiously +communicated to her their own suspicions as to the incident of the +preceding afternoon; and Rose gave vent to one fiery onslaught on the +'moral obstacle' theory, during which Mrs. Thornburgh sat studying her +with small attentive eyes and curls slowly waving from side to side. But +for once in her life the vicar's wife was not communicative in return. +That the situation should have driven even Mrs. Thornburgh to finesse +was a surprising testimony to its gravity. What between her sudden +taciturnity and Catherine's pale silence, the girls' sense of expectancy +was roused to its highest pitch. + +'They come back to-morrow night,' said Rose thoughtfully, 'and he goes +Saturday--10:20 from Whinborough--one day for the Fifth Act! By the way, +why did Mrs. Thornburgh ask us to say nothing about Saturday at home?' + +She _had_ asked them, however; and with a pleasing sense of conspiracy +they complied. + +It was late on Thursday afternoon when Mrs. Thornburgh, finding the +Burwood front door open, made her unchallenged way into the hall, and +after an unanswered knock at the drawing-room door, opened it and peered +in to see who might be there. + +'May I come in?' + +Mrs. Leyburn, who was a trifle deaf, was sitting by the window absorbed +in the intricacies of a heel which seemed to her more than she could +manage. Her card was mislaid, the girls were none of them at hand, and +she felt as helpless as she commonly did when left alone. + +'Oh, do come in, please! So glad to see you. Have you been nearly blown +away?' + +For, though the rain had stopped, a boisterous north-west wind was still +rushing through the valley, and the trees round Burwood were swaying and +groaning under the force of its onslaught. + +'Well, it is stormy,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, stepping in and undoing all +the various safety pins and elastics which had held her dress high above +the mud. 'Are the girls out?' + +'Yes, Catherine and Agnes are at the school; and Rose, I think, is +practising.' + +'Ah, well,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, settling herself in a chair close by +her friend, 'I wanted to find you alone.' + +Her face, framed in bushy curls and an old garden bonnet, was flushed +and serious. Her mittened hands were clasped nervously on her lap, and +there was about her such an air of forcibly restrained excitement that +Mrs. Leyburn's mild eyes gazed at her with some astonishment. The two +women were a curious contrast: Mrs. Thornburgh short, inclined, as we +know, to be stout, ample and abounding in all things, whether it were +curls or cap-strings or conversation; Mrs. Leyburn tall and well +proportioned, well dressed, with the same graceful ways and languid +pretty manners as had first attracted her husband's attention thirty +years before. She was fond of Mrs. Thornburgh, but there was something +in the ebullient energies of the vicar's wife which always gave her a +sense of bustle and fatigue. + +'I am sure you will be sorry to hear,' began her visitor, 'that Mr. +Elsmere is going.' + +'Going?' said Mrs. Leyburn, laying down her knitting. 'Why, I thought he +was going to stay with you another ten days at least.' + +'So did I--so did he,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, nodding, and then pausing +with a most effective air of sudden gravity and 'recollection.' + +'Then why--what's the matter?' asked Mrs. Leyburn, wondering. + +Mrs. Thornburgh did not answer for a minute, and Mrs. Leyburn began to +feel a little nervous, her visitor's eyes were fixed upon her with so +much meaning. Urged by a sudden impulse she bent forward; so did Mrs. +Thornburgh, and their two elderly heads nearly touched. + +'The young man is in love!' said the vicar's wife in a stage whisper, +drawing back after a pause, to see the effect of her announcement. + +'Oh! with whom?' asked Mrs. Leyburn, her look brightening. She liked a +love affair as much as ever. + +Mrs. Thornburgh furtively looked round to see if the door was shut and +all safe--she felt herself a criminal, but the sense of guilt had an +exhilarating rather than a depressing effect upon her. + +'Have you guessed nothing? have the girls told you anything?' + +'No!' said Mrs. Leyburn, her eyes opening wider and wider. She never +guessed anything; there was no need, with three daughters to think for +her, and give her the benefit of their young brains. 'No,' she said +again. 'I can't imagine what you mean.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh felt a rush of inward contempt for so much obtuseness. + +'Well, then, _he is in love with Catherine!_' she said abruptly, laying +her hand on Mrs. Leyburn's knee, and watching the effect. + +'With Catherine!' stammered Mrs. Leyburn; '_with Catherine!_' + +The idea was amazing to her. She took up her knitting with trembling +fingers, and went on with it mechanically a second or two. Then laying +it down--'Are you quite sure? has he told you?' + +'No, but one has eyes,' said Mrs. Thornburgh hastily. 'William and I +have seen it from the very first day. And we are both certain that on +Tuesday she made him understand in some way or other that she wouldn't +marry him, and that is why he went off to Ullswater, and why he made up +his mind to go south before his time is up.' + +'Tuesday?' cried Mrs. Leyburn. 'In that walk, do you mean, when +Catherine looked so tired afterwards? You think he proposed in that +walk?' + +She was in a maze of bewilderment and excitement. + +'Something like it--but if he did, she said "No"; and what I want to +know is _why_ she said "No."' + +'Why, of course, because she didn't care for him!' exclaimed Mrs. +Leyburn, opening her blue eyes wider and wider. 'Catherine's not like +most girls; she would always know what she felt, and would never keep a +man in suspense.' + +'Well, I don't somehow believe,' said Mrs. Thornburgh boldly, 'that she +doesn't care for him. He is just the young man Catherine might care for. +You can see that yourself.' + +Mrs. Leyburn once more laid down her knitting and stared at her visitor. +Mrs. Thornburgh, after all her meditations, had no very precise idea as +to _why_ she was at that moment in the Burwood drawing-room bombarding +Mrs. Leyburn in this fashion. All she knew was that she had sallied +forth determined somehow to upset the situation, just as one gives a +shake purposely to a bundle of spillikins on the chance of more +favourable openings. Mrs. Leyburn's mind was just now playing the part +of spillikins, and the vicar's wife was shaking it vigorously, though +with occasional qualms as to the lawfulness of the process. + +'You think Catherine does care for him?' resumed Mrs. Leyburn +tremulously. + +'Well, isn't he just the kind of man one would suppose Catherine would +like?' repeated Mrs. Thornburgh persuasively; 'he is a clergyman, and +she likes serious people; and he's sensible and nice and well-mannered. +And then he can talk about books, just like her father used--I'm sure +William thinks he knows everything! He isn't as nice-looking as he might +be just now, but then that's his hair and his fever, poor man. And then +he isn't hanging about. He's got a living, and there'd be the poor +people all ready, and everything else Catherine likes. And now I'll just +ask you--did you ever see Catherine more--more--_lively_--well, I know +that's not just the word, but you know what I mean--than she has been +the last fortnight?' + +But Mrs. Leyburn only shook her head helplessly. She did not know in the +least what Mrs. Thornburgh meant. She never thought Catherine doleful, +and she agreed that certainly 'lively' was not the word. + +'Girls get so frightfully particular nowadays,' continued the vicar's +wife, with reflective candour. 'Why, when William fell in love with me, +I just fell in love with him--at once--because he did. And if it hadn't +been William, but somebody else, it would have been the same. I don't +believe girls have got hearts like pebbles--if the man's nice, of +course!' + +Mrs. Leyburn listened to this summary of matrimonial philosophy with the +same yielding flurried attention as she was always disposed to give to +the last speaker. + +'But,' she said, still in a maze, 'if she did care for him, why should +she send him away?' + +'_Because she won't have him!_' said Mrs. Thornburgh energetically, +leaning over the arm of her chair that she might bring herself nearer to +her companion. + +The fatuity of the answer left Mrs. Leyburn staring. + +'Because she won't have him, my dear Mrs. Leyburn! And--and--I'm sure +nothing would make me interfere like this if I weren't so fond of you +all, and if William and I didn't know for certain that there never was a +better young man born! And then I was just sure you'd be the last person +in the world, if you knew, to stand in young people's way!' + +'_I!_' cried poor Mrs. Leyburn--'I stand in the way!' She was getting +tremulous and tearful, and Mrs. Thornburgh felt herself a brute. + +'Well,' she said, plunging on desperately, 'I have been thinking over it +night and day. I've been watching him, and I've been talking to the +girls, and I've been putting two and two together, and I'm just about +sure that there might be a chance for Robert, if only Catherine didn't +feel that you and the girls couldn't get on without her!' + +Mrs. Leyburn took up her knitting again with agitated fingers. She was +so long in answering that Mrs. Thornburgh sat and thought with +trepidation of all sorts of unpleasant consequences which might result +from this audacious move of hers. + +'I don't know how we _should_ get on,' cried Mrs. Leyburn at last, with +a sort of suppressed sob, while something very like a tear fell on the +stocking she held. + +Mrs. Thornburgh was still more frightened, and rushed into a flood of +apologetic speech. Very likely she was wrong, perhaps it was all a +mistake, she was afraid she had done harm, and so on. Mrs. Leyburn took +very little heed, but at last she said, looking up and applying a soft +handkerchief gently to her eyes-- + +'Is his mother nice? Where's his living? Would he want to be married +soon?' + +The voice was weak and tearful, but there was in it unmistakable +eagerness to be informed. Mrs. Thornburgh, overjoyed, let loose upon her +a flood of particulars, painted the virtues and talents of Mrs. Elsmere, +described Robert's Oxford career, with an admirable sense for effect, +and a truly feminine capacity for murdering every university detail, +drew pictures of the Murewell living and rectory, of which Robert had +photographs with him, threw in adroit information about the young man's +private means, and in general showed what may be made of a woman's mind +under the stimulus of one of the occupations most proper to it. Mrs. +Leyburn brightened visibly as the flood proceeded. Alas, poor Catherine! +How little room there is for the heroic in this trivial everyday life of +ours! + +Catherine a bride, Catherine a wife and mother, dim visions of a white +soft morsel in which Catherine's eyes and smile should live again--all +these thoughts went trembling and flashing through Mrs. Leyburn's mind +as she listened to Mrs. Thornburgh. There is so much of the artist in +the maternal mind, of the artist who longs to see the work of his hand +in fresh combinations and under all points of view. Catherine, in the +heat of her own self-surrender, had perhaps forgotten that her mother +too had a heart! + +'Yes, it all sounds very well,' said Mrs. Leyburn at last, sighing, +'but, you know, Catherine isn't easy to manage.' + +'Could you talk to her--find out a little?' + +'Well, not to-day; I shall hardly see her. Doesn't it seem to you that +when a girl takes up notions like Catherine's, she hasn't time for +thinking about the young men? Why, she's as full of business all day +long as an egg's full of meat. Well, it was my poor Richard's doing--it +was his doing, bless him! I am not going to say anything against it. But +it _was_ different--once.' + +'Yes, I know,' said Mrs. Thornburgh thoughtfully. 'One had plenty of +time, when you and I were young, to sit at home and think what one was +going to wear, and how one would look, and whether _he_ had been paying +attention to any one else; and if he had, why; and all that. And now the +young women are so superior. But the marrying has got to be done somehow +all the same. What is she doing to-day?' + +'Oh, she'll be busy all to-day and to-morrow; I hardly expect to see her +till Saturday.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh gave a start of dismay. + +'Why, what _is_ the matter now?' she cried in her most aggrieved tones. +'My dear Mrs. Leyburn, one would think we had the cholera in the parish. +Catherine just spoils the people.' + +'Don't you remember,' said Mrs. Leyburn, staring in her turn, and +drawing herself up a little, 'that to-morrow is Midsummer Day, and that +Mary Backhouse is as bad as she can be?' + +'Mary Backhouse! Why, I had forgotten all about her!' cried the vicar's +wife, with sudden remorse. And she sat pensively eyeing the carpet +awhile. + +Then she got what particulars she could out of Mrs. Leyburn. Catherine, +it appeared, was at this moment at High Ghyll, was not to return till +late, and would be with the dying girl through the greater part of the +following day, returning for an hour or two's rest in the afternoon, and +staying in the evening till the twilight, in which the ghost always made +her appearances, should have passed into night. + +Mrs. Thornburgh listened to it all, her contriving mind working the +while at railway speed on the facts presented to her. + +'How do you get her home to-morrow night?' she asked, with sudden +animation. + +'Oh, we send our man Richard at ten. He takes a lantern if it's dark.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh said no more. Her eyes and gestures were all alive again +with energy and hope. She had given her shake to Mrs. Leyburn's mind. +Much good might it do! But, after all, she had the poorest opinion of +the widow's capacities as an ally. + +She and her companion said a few more excited, affectionate, and +apologetic things to one another, and then she departed. + +Both mother and knitting were found by Agnes half an hour later in a +state of considerable confusion. But Mrs. Leyburn kept her own counsel, +having resolved for once, with a timid and yet delicious excitement, to +act as the head of the family. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Thornburgh was laying plans on her own account. + +'Ten o'clock--moonlight,' said that contriving person to herself going +home--'at least if the clouds hold up--that'll do--couldn't be better.' + + * * * * * + +To any person familiar with her character the signs of some unusual +preoccupation were clear enough in Mrs. Leyburn during this Thursday +evening. Catherine noticed them at once when she got back from High +Ghyll about eight o'clock, and wondered first of all what was the +matter; and then, with more emphasis, why the trouble was not +immediately communicated to her. It had never entered into her head to +take her mother into her confidence with regard to Elsmere. Since she +could remember, it had been an axiom in the family to spare the delicate +nervous mother all the anxieties and perplexities of life. It was a +system in which the subject of it had always acquiesced with perfect +contentment, and Catherine had no qualms about it. If there was good +news, it was presented in its most sugared form to Mrs. Leyburn; but the +moment any element of pain and difficulty cropped up in the common life, +it was pounced upon and appropriated by Catherine, aided and abetted by +the girls, and Mrs. Leyburn knew no more about it than an unweaned babe. + +So that Catherine was thinking at most of some misconduct of a Perth +dyer with regard to her mother's best gray poplin, when one of the +greatest surprises of her life burst upon her. + +She was in Mrs. Leyburn's bedroom that night, helping to put away her +mother's things, as her custom was. She had just taken off the widow's +cap, caressing as she did so the brown hair underneath, which was still +soft and plentiful, when Mrs. Leyburn turned upon her. 'Catherine!' she +said in an agitated voice, laying a thin hand on her daughter's arm. +'Oh, Catherine, I want to speak to you!' + +Catherine knelt lightly down by her mother's side, and put her arms +round her waist. + +'Yes, mother darling,' she said, half smiling. + +'Oh, Catherine! if--if--you like Mr. Elsmere, don't mind--don't +think--about us, dear. We can manage--we can manage, dear!' + +The change that took place in Catherine Leyburn's face is indescribable. +She rose instantly, her arms falling behind her, her beautiful brows +drawn together. Mrs. Leyburn looked up at her with a pathetic mixture of +helplessness, alarm, entreaty. + +'Mother, who has been talking to you about Mr. Elsmere and me?' demanded +Catherine. + +'Oh, never mind, dear, never mind,' said the widow hastily; 'I should +have seen it myself--oh, I know I should; but I'm a bad mother, +Catherine!' And she caught her daughter's dress and drew her towards +her. '_Do_ you care for him?' + +Catherine did not answer. She knelt down again, and laid her head on her +mother's hands. + +'I want nothing,' she said presently in a low voice of intense +emotion--'I want nothing but you and the girls. You are my life, I ask +for nothing more. I am abundantly--content.' + +Mrs. Leyburn gazed down on her with infinite perplexity. The brown hair, +escaped from the cap, had fallen about her still pretty neck, a pink +spot of excitement was on each gently-hollowed cheek; she looked almost +younger than her pale daughter. + +'But--he is very nice,' she said timidly. 'And he has a good living. +Catherine, you ought to be a clergyman's wife.' + +'I ought to be, and I am your daughter,' said Catherine, smiling a +little with an unsteady lip, and kissing her hand. + +Mrs. Leyburn sighed and looked straight before her. Perhaps in +imagination she saw the vicar's wife. 'I think--I think,' she said very +seriously, 'I should like it!' + +Catherine straightened herself brusquely at that. It was as though she +had felt a blow. + +'Mother!' she cried, with a stifled accent of pain, and yet still trying +to smile, 'do you want to send me away?' + +'No, no!' cried Mrs. Leyburn hastily. 'But if a nice man wants you to +marry him, Catherine? Your father would have liked him--oh, I know your +father would have liked him! And his manners to me are so pretty, I +shouldn't mind being _his_ mother-in-law. And the girls have no brother, +you know, dear. Your father was always so sorry about that.' + +She spoke with pleading agitation, her own tempting imaginations--the +pallor, the latent storm of Catherine's look--exciting her more and +more. + +Catherine was silent a moment, then she caught her mother's hand again. + +'Dear little mother--dear, kind little mother! You are an angel, you +always are. But I think, if you'll keep me, I'll stay.' + +And she once more rested her head clingingly on Mrs. Leyburn's knee. + +'But _do_ you--_do_ you love him, Catherine?' + +'I love you, mother, and the girls, and my life here.' + +'Oh dear,' sighed Mrs. Leyburn, as though addressing a third person, the +tears in her mild eyes, 'she won't, and she _would_ like it, and so +should I!' + +Catherine rose, stung beyond bearing. + +'And I count for nothing to you, mother!' her deep voice quivering. 'You +could put me aside, you and the girls, and live as though I had never +been!' + +'But you would be a great deal to us if you did marry, Catherine!' cried +Mrs. Leyburn, almost with an accent of pettishness. 'People have to do +without their daughters. There's Agnes--I often think, as it is, you +might let her do more. And if Rose were troublesome, why, you know it +might be a good thing--a very good thing--if there were a man to take +her in hand!' + +'And you, mother, without me?' cried poor Catherine, choked. + +'Oh, I should come and see you,' said Mrs. Leyburn, brightening. 'They +say it _is_ such a nice house, Catherine, and such pretty country; and +I'm sure I should like his mother, though she _is_ Irish!' + +It was the bitterest moment of Catherine Leyburn's life. In it the +heroic dream of years broke down. Nay, the shrivelling ironic touch of +circumstance laid upon it made it look even in her own eyes almost +ridiculous. What had she been living for, praying for, all these years? +She threw herself down by the widow's side, her face working with a +passion that terrified Mrs. Leyburn. + +'Oh, mother, say you would miss me--say you would miss me if I went!' + +Then Mrs. Leyburn herself broke down, and the two women clung to each +other, weeping. Catherine's sore heart was soothed a little by her +mother's tears, and by the broken words of endearment that were lavished +on her. But through it all she felt that the excited imaginative desire +in Mrs. Leyburn still persisted. It was the cheapening--the vulgarising, +so to speak, of her whole existence. + +In the course of their long embrace Mrs. Leyburn let fall various items +of news that showed Catherine very plainly who had been at work upon her +mother, and one of which startled her. + +'He comes back to-night, my dear--and he goes on Saturday. Oh, and, +Catherine, Mrs. Thornburgh says he _does_ care so much. Poor young man!' + +And Mrs. Leyburn looked up at her now standing daughter with eyes as +woe-begone for Elsmere as for herself. + +'Don't talk about it any more, mother,' Catherine implored. 'You won't +sleep, and I shall be more wroth with Mrs. Thornburgh than I am +already.' + +Mrs. Leyburn let herself be gradually soothed and coerced, and +Catherine, with a last kiss to the delicate emaciated fingers on which +the worn wedding-ring lay slipping forward--in itself a history--left +her at last to sleep. + +'And I don't know much more than when I began!' sighed the perplexed +widow to herself. 'Oh, I wish Richard was here--I do!' + +Catherine's night was a night of intense mental struggle. Her struggle +was one with which the modern world has perhaps but scant sympathy. +Instinctively we feel such things out of place in our easy indifferent +generation. We think them more than half unreal. We are so apt to take +it for granted that the world has outgrown the religious thirst for +sanctification, for a perfect moral consistency, as it has outgrown so +many of the older complications of the sentiment of honour. And +meanwhile half the tragedy of our time lies in this perpetual clashing +of two estimates of life--the estimate which is the offspring of the +scientific spirit, and which is for ever making the visible world fairer +and more desirable in mortal eyes; and the estimate of Saint Augustine. + + * * * * * + +As a matter of fact, owing to some travelling difficulties, the vicar +and Elsmere did not get home till noon on Friday. Catherine knew nothing +of either delay or arrival. Mrs. Leyburn watched her with anxious +timidity, but she never mentioned Elsmere's name to any one on the +Friday morning, and no one dared speak of him to her. She came home in +the afternoon from the Backhouses' absorbed apparently in the state of +the dying girl, took a couple of hours' rest, and hurried off again. She +passed the vicarage with bent head, and never looked up. + +'She is gone!' said Rose to Agnes as she stood at the window looking +after her sister's retreating figure. 'It is all over! They can't meet +now. He will be off by nine to-morrow.' + +The girl spoke with a lump in her throat, and flung herself down by the +window, moodily watching the dark form against the fells. Catherine's +coldness seemed to make all life colder and more chilling--to fling a +hard denial in the face of the dearest claims of earth. + +The stormy light of the afternoon was fading towards sunset. Catherine +walked on fast towards the group of houses at the head of the valley, in +one of which lived the two old carriers who had worked such havoc with +Mrs. Thornburgh's housekeeping arrangements. She was tired physically, +but she was still more tired mentally. She had the bruised feeling of +one who has been humiliated before the world and before herself. Her +self-respect was for the moment crushed, and the breach made in the +wholeness of personal dignity had produced a strange slackness of nerve, +extending both to body and mind. She had been convicted, it seemed to +her, in her own eyes, and in those of her world, of an egregious +over-estimate of her own value. She walked with hung head like one +ashamed, the overstrung religious sense deepening her discomfiture at +every step. How rich her life had always been in the conviction of +usefulness--nay, indispensableness! Her mother's persuasions had dashed +it from her. And religious scruple, for her torment, showed her her +past, transformed, alloyed with all sorts of personal prides and +cravings, which stood unmasked now in a white light. + +And he? Still near her for a few short hours! Every pulse in her had +thrilled as she had passed the house which sheltered him. But she will +see him no more. And she is glad. If he had stayed on, he too would have +discovered how cheaply they held her--those dear ones of hers for whom +she had lived till now! And she might have weakly yielded to his pity +what she had refused to his homage. The strong nature is half tortured, +half soothed by the prospect of his going. Perhaps when he is gone she +will recover something of that moral equilibrium which has been so +shaken. At present she is a riddle to herself, invaded by a force she +has no power to cope with, feeling the moral ground of years crumbling +beneath her, and struggling feverishly for self-control. + +As she neared the head of the valley the wind became less tempestuous. +The great wall of High Fell, towards which she was walking, seemed to +shelter her from its worst violence. But the hurrying clouds, the gleams +of lurid light which every now and then penetrated into the valley from +the west, across the dip leading to Shanmoor, the voice of the river +answering the voice of the wind, and the deep unbroken shadow that +covered the group of houses and trees towards which she was walking, all +served to heighten the nervous depression which had taken hold of her. +As she neared the bridge, however, leading to the little hamlet, beyond +which northwards all was stony loneliness and desolation, and saw in +front of her the gray stone house, backed by the sombre red of a great +copper beech, and overhung by crags, she had perforce to take herself by +both hands, try and realise her mission afresh, and the scene which lay +before her. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Mary Backhouse, the girl whom Catherine had been visiting with +regularity for many weeks, and whose frail life was this evening nearing +a terrible and long-expected crisis, was the victim of a fate sordid and +common enough, yet not without its elements of dark poetry. Some fifteen +months before this Midsummer Day she had been the mistress of the lonely +old house in which her father and uncle had passed their whole lives, in +which she had been born, and in which, amid snowdrifts so deep that no +doctor could reach them, her mother had passed away. She had been then +strong and well favoured, possessed of a certain masculine black-browed +beauty, and of a temper which sometimes gave to it an edge and glow such +as an artist of ambition might have been glad to catch. At the bottom of +all the outward _sauvagerie_, however, there was a heart, and strong +wants, which only affection and companionship could satisfy and tame. +Neither was to be found in sufficient measure within her home. Her +father and she were on fairly good terms, and had for each other up to a +certain point the natural instincts of kinship. On her uncle, whom she +regarded as half-witted, she bestowed alternate tolerance and jeers. She +was, indeed, the only person whose remonstrances ever got under the wool +with old Jim, and her sharp tongue had sometimes a cowing effect on his +curious nonchalance which nothing else had. For the rest, they had no +neighbours with whom the girl could fraternise, and Whinborough was too +far off to provide any adequate food for her vague hunger after emotion +and excitement. + +In this dangerous morbid state she fell a victim to the very coarse +attractions of a young farmer in the neighbouring valley of Shanmoor. He +was a brute with a handsome face, and a nature in which whatever grains +of heart and conscience might have been interfused with the original +composition had been long since swamped. Mary, who had recklessly flung +herself into his power on one or two occasions, from a mixture of +motives, partly passion, partly jealousy, partly _ennui_, awoke one day +to find herself ruined, and a grim future hung before her. She had +realised her doom for the first time in its entirety on the Midsummer +Day preceding that we are now describing. On that day she had walked +over to Shanmoor in a fever of dumb rage and despair, to claim from her +betrayer the fulfilment of his promise of marriage. He had laughed at +her, and she had fled home in the warm rainy dusk, a prey to all those +torturing terrors which only a woman _in extremis_ can know. And on her +way back she had seen the ghost or 'bogle' of Deep Crag; the ghost had +spoken to her, and she had reached home more dead than alive, having +received what she at once recognised as her death sentence. + +What had she seen? An effect of moonlit mist--a shepherd boy bent on a +practical joke--a gleam of white waterfall among the darkening rocks? +What had she heard? The evening greeting of a passer-by, wafted down to +her from some higher path along the fell? distant voices in the farm +enclosures beneath her feet? or simply the eerie sounds of the mountain, +those weird earth-whispers which haunt the lonely places of nature? Who +can tell? Nerves and brain were strained to their uttermost. The legend +of the ghost--of the girl who had thrown her baby and herself into the +tarn under the frowning precipitous cliffs which marked the western end +of High Fell, and who had since then walked the lonely road to Shanmoor +every Midsummer Night, with her moaning child upon her arm--had flashed +into Mary's mind as she left the white-walled village of Shanmoor behind +her, and climbed upward with her shame and her secret into the mists. To +see the bogle was merely distressing and untoward; to be spoken to by +the phantom voice was death. No one so addressed could hope to survive +the following Midsummer Day. Revolving these things in her mind, along +with the terrible details of her own story, the exhausted girl had seen +her vision, and, as she firmly believed, incurred her doom. + +A week later she had disappeared from home and from the neighbourhood. +The darkest stories were afloat. She had taken some money with her, and +all trace of her was lost. The father had a period of gloomy +taciturnity, during which his principal relief was got out of jeering +and girding at his elder brother, the noodle's eyes wandered and +glittered more; his shrunken frame seemed more shrunken as he sat +dangling his spindle legs from the shaft of the carrier's cart; his +absence of mind was for a time more marked, and excused with less +buoyancy and inventiveness than usual. But otherwise all went on as +before. John Backhouse took no step, and for nine months nothing was +heard of his daughter. + +At last one cheerless March afternoon, Jim, coming back first from the +Wednesday round with the cart, entered the farm kitchen, while John +Backhouse was still wrangling at one of the other farmhouses of the +hamlet about some disputed payment. The old man came in cold and weary, +and the sight of the half-tended kitchen and neglected fire--they paid a +neighbour to do the housework, as far as the care of her own seven +children would let her--suddenly revived in his slippery mind the memory +of his niece, who, with all her faults, had had the makings of a +housewife, and for whom, in spite of her flouts and jeers, he had always +cherished a secret admiration. As he came in he noticed that the door to +the left hand, leading into what Westmoreland folk call the 'house' or +sitting-room of the farm, was open. The room had hardly been used since +Mary's flight, and the few pieces of black oak and shining mahogany +which adorned it had long ago fallen from their pristine polish. The +geraniums and fuchsias with which she had filled the window all the +summer before had died into dry blackened stalks; and the dust lay heavy +on the room, in spite of the well-meant but wholly ineffective efforts +of the charwoman next door. The two old men had avoided the place for +months past by common consent, and the door into it was hardly ever +opened. + +Now, however, it stood ajar, and old Jim going up to shut it, and +looking in, was struck dumb with astonishment. For there on a wooden +rocking-chair, which had been her mother's favourite seat, sat Mary +Backhouse, her feet on the curved brass fender, her eyes staring into +the parlour grate. Her clothes, her face, her attitude of cowering chill +and mortal fatigue, produced an impression which struck through the old +man's dull senses, and made him tremble so that his hand dropped from +the handle of the door. The slight sound roused Mary, and she turned +towards him. She said nothing for a few seconds, her hollow black eyes +fixed upon him; then with a ghastly smile, and a voice so hoarse as to +be scarcely audible-- + +'Weel, aa've coom back. Ye'd maybe not expect me?' + +There was a sound behind on the cobbles outside the kitchen door. + +'Yur feyther!' cried Jim between his teeth. 'Gang upstairs wi' ye.' And +he pointed to a door in the wall concealing a staircase to the upper +storey. + +She sprang up, looked at the door and at him irresolutely, and then +stayed where she was, gaunt, pale, fever-eyed, the wreck and ghost of +her old self. + +The steps neared. There was a rough voice in the kitchen, a surprised +exclamation, and her father had pushed past his brother into the room. + +John Backhouse no sooner saw his daughter than his dull weather-beaten +face flamed into violence. With an oath he raised the heavy whip he held +in his hand, and flung himself towards her. + +'Naw, ye'll not du'at!' cried Jim, throwing himself with all his feeble +strength on to his brother's arm. John swore and struggled, but the old +man stuck like a limpet. + +'You let 'un aleann,' said Mary, drawing her tattered shawl over her +breast. 'If he aims to kill me, _aa_'ll not say naa. But he needn't +moider hisself! There's them abuve as ha' taken care o' that!' + +She sank again into her chair, as though her limbs could not support +her, and her eyes closed in the utter indifference of a fatigue which +had made even fear impossible. + +The father's arm dropped; he stood there sullenly looking at her. Jim, +thinking she had fainted, went up to her, took a glass of water out of +which she had already been drinking from the mahogany table, and held it +to her lips. She drank a little, and then with a desperate effort raised +herself, and clutching the arm of the chair, faced her father. + +'Ye'll not hev to wait lang. Doan't ye fash yersel. Maybe it ull comfort +ye to knaw summat! Lasst Midsummer Day aa was on t' Shanmoor road, i' t' +gloaming. An' aa saw theer t' bogle--thee knaws, t' bogle o' Bleacliff +Tarn; an' she turned hersel, an' she spoak to me!' + +She uttered the last words with a grim emphasis, dwelling on each, the +whole life of the wasted face concentrated in the terrible black eyes, +which gazed past the two figures within their immediate range into a +vacancy peopled with horror. Then a film came over them, the grip +relaxed, and she fell back with a lurch of the rocking-chair in a dead +swoon. + +With the help of the neighbour from next door, Jim got her upstairs into +the room that had been hers. She awoke from her swoon only to fall into +the torpid sleep of exhaustion, which lasted for twelve hours. + +'Keep her oot o' ma way,' said the father with an oath to Jim, 'or aa'll +not answer nayther for her nor me!' + +She needed no telling. She soon crept downstairs again, and went to the +task of house-cleaning. The two men lived in the kitchen as before; when +they were at home she ate and sat in the parlour alone. Jim watched her +as far as his dull brain was capable of watching, and he dimly +understood that she was dying. Both men, indeed, felt a sort of +superstitious awe of her, she was so changed, so unearthly. As for the +story of the ghost, the old popular superstitions are almost dead in the +Cumbrian mountains, and the shrewd north-country peasant is in many +places quite as scornfully ready to sacrifice his ghosts to the Time +Spirit as any 'bold bad' haunter of scientific associations could wish +him to be. But in a few of the remoter valleys they still linger, though +beneath the surface. Either of the Backhouses, or Mary in her days of +health, would have suffered many things rather than allow a stranger to +suppose they placed the smallest credence in the story of Bleacliff +Tarn. But, all the same, the story which each had heard in childhood, on +stormy nights perhaps, when the mountain side was awful with the sounds +of tempest, had grown up with them, had entered deep into the tissue of +consciousness. In Mary's imagination the ideas and images connected with +it had now, under the stimulus of circumstance, become instinct with a +living pursuing terror. But they were present, though in a duller, +blunter state, in the minds of her father and uncle; and as the weeks +passed on, and the days lengthened towards midsummer, a sort of brooding +horror seemed to settle on the house. + +Mary grew weaker and weaker; her cough kept Jim awake at nights; once or +twice when he went to help her with a piece of work which not even her +extraordinary will could carry her through, her hand burnt him like a +hot cinder. But she kept all other women out of the house by her mad, +strange ways; and if her uncle showed any consciousness of her state, +she turned upon him with her old temper, which had lost all its former +stormy grace, and had become ghastly by the contrast it brought out +between the tempestuous vindictive soul and the shaken weakness of +frame. + +A doctor would have discovered at once that what was wrong with her was +phthisis, complicated with insanity; and the insanity, instead of taking +the hopeful optimistic tinge which is characteristic of the insanity of +consumption, had rather assumed the colour of the events from which the +disease itself had started. Cold, exposure, long-continued agony of mind +and body--the madness intertwined with an illness which had such roots +as these was naturally a madness of despair. One of its principal signs +was the fixed idea as to Midsummer Day. It never occurred to her as +possible that her life should be prolonged beyond that limit. Every +night, as she dragged herself up the steep little staircase to her room, +she checked off the day which had just passed from the days she had +still to live. She had made all her arrangements; she had even sewed +with her own hands, and that without any sense of special horror, but +rather in the provident peasant way, the dress in which she was to be +carried to her grave. + +At last one day, her father, coming unexpectedly into the yard, saw her +carrying a heavy pail of water from the pump. Something stirred within +him, and he went up to her and forcibly took it from her. Their looks +met, and her poor mad eyes gazed intensely into his. As he moved forward +towards the house she crept after him, passing him into the parlour, +where she sank down breathless on the settle where she had been sleeping +for the last few nights, rather than face climbing the stairs. For the +first time he followed her, watching her gasping struggle for breath, in +spite of her impatient motion to him to go. After a few seconds he left +her, took his hat, went out, saddled his horse, and rode off to +Whinborough. He got Dr. Baker to promise to come over on the morrow, and +on his way back he called and requested to see Catherine Leyburn. He +stammeringly asked her to come and visit his daughter who was ill and +lonesome, and when she consented gladly he went on his way feeling a +load off his mind. What he had just done had been due to an undefined, +but still vehement prompting of conscience. It did not make it any the +less probable that the girl would die on or before Midsummer Day; but, +supposing her story were true, it absolved him from any charge of +assistance to the designs of those grisly powers in whose clutch she +was. + +When the doctor came next morning a change for the worse had taken +place, and she was too feeble actively to resent his appearance. She lay +there on the settle, every now and then making superhuman efforts to get +up, which generally ended in a swoon. She refused to take any medicine, +she would hardly take any food, and to the doctor's questions she +returned no answer whatever. In the same way, when Catherine came, she +would be absolutely silent, looking at her with glittering, feverish +eyes, but taking no notice at all, whether she read or talked, or simply +sat quietly beside her. + +After the silent period, as the days went on, and Midsummer Day drew +nearer, there supervened a period of intermittent delirium. In the +evenings, especially when her temperature rose, she became talkative and +incoherent, and Catherine would sometimes tremble as she caught the +sentences which, little by little, built up the girl's hidden tragedy +before her eyes. London streets, London lights, London darkness, the +agony of an endless wandering, the little clinging puny life, which +could never be stilled or satisfied, biting cold, intolerable pain, the +cheerless workhouse order, and, finally, the arms without a burden, the +breast without a child--these were the sharp fragments of experience, so +common, so terrible to the end of time, which rose on the troubled +surface of Mary Backhouse's delirium, and smote the tender heart of the +listener. + +Then in the mornings she would lie suspicious and silent, watching +Catherine's face with the long gaze of exhaustion, as though trying to +find out from it whether her secret had escaped her. The doctor, who had +gathered the story of the 'bogle' from Catherine, to whom Jim had told +it, briefly and reluctantly, and with an absolute reservation of his own +views on the matter, recommended that if possible they should try and +deceive her as to the date of the day and month. Mere nervous excitement +might, he thought, be enough to kill her when the actual day and hour +came round. But all their attempts were useless. Nothing distracted the +intense sleepless attention with which the darkened mind kept always in +view that one absorbing expectation. Words fell from her at night which +seemed to show that she expected a summons--a voice along the fell, +calling her spirit into the dark. And then would come the shriek, the +struggle to get loose, the choked waking, the wandering, horror-stricken +eyes, subsiding by degrees into the old silent watch. + +On the morning of the 23d, when Robert, sitting at his work, was looking +at Burwood through the window in the flattering belief that Catherine +was the captive of the weather, she had spent an hour or more with Mary +Backhouse, and the austere influences of the visit had perhaps had more +share than she knew in determining her own mood that day. The world +seemed such dross, the pretences of personal happiness so hollow and +delusive, after such a sight! The girl lay dying fast, with a look of +extraordinary attentiveness in her face, hearing every noise, every +footfall, and, as it seemed to Catherine, in a mood of inward joy. She +took, moreover, some notice of her visitor. As a rough tomboy of +fourteen, she had shown Catherine, who had taught her in the school +sometimes, and had especially won her regard on one occasion by a +present of some article of dress, a good many uncouth signs of +affection. On the morning in question Catherine fancied she saw +something of the old childish expression once or twice. At any rate, +there was no doubt her presence was soothing, as she read in her low +vibrating voice, or sat silently stroking the emaciated hand, raising it +every now and then to her lips with a rush of that intense pitifulness +which was to her the most natural of all moods. + +The doctor, whom she met there, said that this state of calm was very +possibly only transitory. The night had been passed in a succession of +paroxysms, and they were almost sure to return upon her, especially as +he could get her to swallow none of the sedatives which might have +carried her in unconsciousness past the fatal moment. She would have +none of them; he thought that she was determined to allow of no +encroachments on the troubled remnants of intelligence still left to +her; so the only thing to be done was to wait and see the result. 'I +will come to-morrow,' said Catherine briefly; 'for the day certainly, +longer if necessary.' She had long ago established her claim to be +treated seriously as a nurse, and Dr. Baker made no objection. '_If_ she +lives so long,' he said dubiously. 'The Backhouses and Mrs. Irwin [the +neighbour] shall be close at hand. I will come in the afternoon and try +to get her to take an opiate; but I can't give it her by force, and +there is not the smallest chance of her consenting to it.' + +All through Catherine's own struggle and pain during these two days the +image of the dying girl had lain at her heart. It served her as the +crucifix serves the Romanist; as she pressed it into her thought, it +recovered from time to time the failing forces of the will. Need life +be empty because self was left unsatisfied? Now, as she neared the +hamlet, the quality of her nature reasserted itself. The personal want +tugging at her senses, the personal soreness, the cry of resentful love, +were silenced. What place had they in the presence of this lonely agony +of death, this mystery, this opening beyond? The old heroic mood revived +in her. Her step grew swifter, her carriage more erect, and as she +entered the farm kitchen she felt herself once more ready in spirit for +what lay before her. + +From the next room there came a succession of husky sibilant sounds, as +though some one were whispering hurriedly and continuously. + +After her subdued greeting she looked inquiringly at Jim. + +'She's in a taaking way,' said Jim, who looked more attenuated and his +face more like a pink and white parchment than ever. 'She's been +knacking an' taaking a long while. She woan't know ye. Luke ye,' he +continued, dropping his voice as he opened the 'house' door for her; 'ef +you want ayder ov oos, you jest call oot--sharp! Mrs. Irwin, shell stay +in wi' ye--she's not afeeard!' + +The superstitious excitement which the looks and gestures of the old man +expressed touched Catherine's imagination, and she entered the room with +an inward shiver. + +Mary Backhouse lay raised high on her pillows, talking to herself or to +imaginary other persons, with eyes wide open but vacant, and senses +conscious of nothing but the dream world in which the mind was +wandering. Catherine sat softly down beside her, unnoticed, thankful for +the chances of disease. If this delirium lasted till the ghost-hour--the +time of twilight, that is to say, which would begin about half-past +eight, and the duration of which would depend on the cloudiness of the +evening--was over, or, better still, till midnight were past, the strain +on the girl's agonised senses might be relieved, and death come at last +in softer, kinder guise. + +'Has she been long like this?' she asked softly of the neighbour who sat +quietly knitting by the evening light. + +The woman looked up and thought. + +'Ay!' she said. 'Aa came in at tea-time, an' she's been maistly taakin' +ivver sence!' + +The incoherent whisperings and restless movements, which obliged +Catherine constantly to replace the coverings over the poor wasted and +fevered body, went on for some time. Catherine noticed presently, with a +little thrill, that the light was beginning to change. The weather was +growing darker and stormier; the wind shook the house in gusts; and the +farther shoulder of High Fell, seen in distorted outline through the +casemented window, was almost hidden by the trailing rain clouds. The +mournful western light coming from behind the house struck the river +here and there; almost everything else was gray and dark. A mountain +ash, just outside the window, brushed the panes every now and then; and +in the silence every surrounding sound--the rare movements in the next +room, the voices of quarrelling children round the door of a +neighbouring house, the far-off barking of dogs--made itself distinctly +audible. + +Suddenly Catherine, sunk in painful reverie, noticed that the mutterings +from the bed had ceased for some little time. She turned her chair, and +was startled to find those weird eyes fixed with recognition on herself. +There was a curious malign intensity, a curious triumph in them. + +'It must be--eight o'clock,' said the gasping voice--'_eight o'clock_;' +and the tone became a whisper, as though the idea thus half +involuntarily revealed had been drawn jealously back into the +strongholds of consciousness. + +'Mary,' said Catherine, falling on her knees beside the bed, and taking +one of the restless hands forcibly into her own, 'can't you put this +thought away from you? We are not the playthings of evil spirits--we are +the children of God! We are in His hands. No evil thing can harm us +against His will.' + +It was the first time for many days she had spoken openly of the thought +which was in the mind of all, and her whole pleading soul was in her +pale, beautiful face. There was no response in the sick girl's +countenance, and again that look of triumph, of sinister exultation. +They had tried to cheat her into sleeping, and living, and in spite of +them, at the supreme moment, every sense was awake and expectant. To +what was the materialised peasant imagination looking forward? To an +actual call, an actual following to the free mountain-side, the rush of +the wind, the phantom figure floating on before her, bearing her into +the heart of the storm? Dread was gone, pain was gone; there was only +rapt excitement and fierce anticipation. + +'Mary,' said Catherine again, mistaking her mood for one of tense +defiance and despair, 'Mary, if I were to go out now and leave Mrs. +Irwin with you, and if I were to go up all the way to the top of +Shanmoss and back again, and if I could tell you there was nothing +there, nothing!--if I were to stay out till the dark has come--it will +be here in half an hour--and you could be quite sure when you saw me +again, that there was nothing near you but the dear old hills, and the +power of God, could you believe me and try and rest and sleep?' + +Mary looked at her intently. If Catherine could have seen clearly in the +dim light she would have caught something of the cunning of madness +slipping into the dying woman's expression. While she waited for the +answer there was a noise in the kitchen outside, an opening of the outer +door, and a voice. Catherine's heart stood still. She had to make a +superhuman effort to keep her attention fixed on Mary. + +'Go!' said the hoarse whisper close beside her, and the girl lifted her +wasted hand, and pushed her visitor from her. 'Go!' it repeated +insistently, with a sort of wild beseeching; then, brokenly, the gasping +breath interrupting, 'There's naw fear--naw fear--fur the likes o' you!' + +Catherine rose. + +'I'm not afraid,' she said gently, but her hand shook as she pushed her +chair back; 'God is everywhere, Mary.' + +She put on her hat and cloak, said something in Mrs. Irwin's ear, and +stooped to kiss the brow which to the shuddering sense under her will +seemed already cold and moist with the sweats of death. Mary watched her +go; Mrs. Irwin, with the air of one bewildered, drew her chair nearer to +the settle; and the light of the fire, shooting and dancing through the +June twilight, threw such fantastic shadows over the face on the pillow +that all expression was lost. What was moving in the crazed mind? +Satisfaction, perhaps, at having got rid of one witness, one jailer, one +of the various antagonistic forces surrounding her? She had a dim +frenzied notion she should have to fight for her liberty when the call +came, and she lay tense and rigid, waiting--the images of insanity +whirling through her brain, while the light slowly, slowly waned. + +Catherine opened the door into the kitchen. The two carriers were +standing there, and Robert Elsmere also stood with his back to her, +talking to them in an undertone. + +He turned at the sound behind him, and his start brought a sudden flush +to Catherine's cheek. Her face, as the candle-light struck it amid the +shadows of the doorway, was like an angelic vision to him--the heavenly +calm of it just exquisitely broken by the wonder, the shock, of his +presence. + +'You here?' he cried, coming up to her, and taking her hand--what secret +instinct guided him?--close in both of his. 'I never dreamt of it--so +late. My cousin sent me over--she wished for news.' + +She smiled involuntarily. It seemed to her she had expected this in some +sort all along. But her self-possession was complete. + +'The excited state may be over in a short time now,' she answered him in +a quiet whisper; 'but at present it is at its height. It seemed to +please her'--and withdrawing her hand, she turned to John +Backhouse--'when I suggested that I should walk up to Shanmoss and back. +I said I would come back to her in half an hour or so, when the daylight +was quite gone, and prove to her there was nothing on the path.' + +A hand caught her arm. It was Mrs. Irwin, holding the door close with +the other hand. + +'Miss Leyburn--Miss Catherine! Yur not gawin' oot--not gawin' oop _that_ +path?' The woman was fond of Catherine, and looked deadly frightened. + +'Yes, I am, Mrs. Irwin--but I shall be back very soon. Don't leave her; +go back.' And Catherine motioned her back with a little peremptory +gesture. + +'Doan't ye let 'ur, sir,' said the woman excitedly to Robert. 'One's +eneuf aa'm thinking.' And she pointed with a meaning gesture to the room +behind her. + +Robert looked at Catherine, who was moving towards the outer door. + +'I'll go with her,' he said hastily, his face lighting up. 'There is +nothing whatever to be afraid of, only don't leave your patient.' + +Catherine trembled as she heard the words, but she made no sign, and the +two men and the woman watched their departure with blank uneasy +wonderment. A second later they were on the fell-side climbing a rough +stony path, which in places was almost a watercourse, and which wound up +the fell towards a tract of level swampy moss or heath, beyond which lay +the descent to Shanmoor. Daylight was almost gone; the stormy yellow +west was being fast swallowed up in cloud; below them as they climbed +lay the dark group of houses, with a light twinkling here and there. All +about them were black mountain forms; a desolate tempestuous wind drove +a gusty rain into their faces; a little beck roared beside them, and in +the distance from the black gulf of the valley the swollen river +thundered. + +Elsmere looked down on his companion with an indescribable exultation, a +passionate sense of possession which could hardly restrain itself. He +had come back that morning with a mind clearly made up. Catherine had +been blind indeed when she supposed that any plan of his or hers would +have been allowed to stand in the way of that last wrestle with her, of +which he had planned all the methods, rehearsed all the arguments. But +when he reached the vicarage he was greeted with the news of her +absence. She was inaccessible it appeared for the day. No matter! The +vicar and he settled in the fewest possible words that he should stay +till Monday, Mrs. Thornburgh meanwhile looking on, saying what civility +demanded, and surprisingly little else. Then in the evening Mrs. +Thornburgh had asked of him with a manner of admirable indifference +whether he felt inclined for an evening walk to High Ghyll to inquire +after Mary Backhouse. The request fell in excellently with a lover's +restlessness, and Robert assented at once. The vicar saw him go with +puzzled brows and a quick look at his wife, whose head was bent close +over her worsted work. + +It never occurred to Elsmere--or if it did occur, he pooh-poohed the +notion--that he should find Catherine still at her post far from home on +this dark stormy evening. But in the glow of joy which her presence had +brought him he was still capable of all sorts of delicate perceptions +and reasonings. His quick imagination carried him through the scene from +which she had just momentarily escaped. He had understood the exaltation +of her look and tone. If love spoke at all, ringed with such +surroundings, it must be with its most inward and spiritual voice, as +those speak who feel 'the Eternities' about them. + +But the darkness hid her from him so well that he had to feel out the +situation for himself. He could not trace it in her face. + +'We must go right up to the top of the pass,' she said to him as he held +a gate open for her which led them into a piece of larch plantation on +the mountain-side. 'The ghost is supposed to walk along this bit of road +above the houses, till it reaches the heath on the top, and then it +turns towards Bleacliff Tarn, which lies higher up to the right, under +High Fell.' + +'Do you imagine your report will have any effect?' + +'At any rate,' she said sighing, 'it seemed to me that it might divert +her thoughts a little from the actual horror of her own summons. +Anything is better than the torture of that one fixed idea as she lies +there.' + +'What is that?' said Robert, startled a little by some ghostly sounds in +front of them. The little wood was almost dark, and he could see +nothing. + +'Only a horse trotting on in front of us,' said Catherine; 'our voices +frightened him, I suppose. We shall be out on the fell again directly.' + +And as they quitted the trees, a dark bulky form to the left suddenly +lifted a shadowy head from the grass, and clattered down the slope. + +A cluster of white-stemmed birches just ahead of them caught whatever +light was still left in the atmosphere, their feathery tops bending and +swaying against the sky. + +'How easily, with mind attuned, one could people this whole path with +ghosts!' said Robert. 'Look at those stems, and that line of stream +coming down to the right, and listen to the wind among the fern.' + +For they were passing a little gully deep in bracken, up which the blast +was tearing its tempestuous way. + +Catherine shivered a little, and the sense of physical exhaustion, which +had been banished like everything else--doubt, humiliation, +bitterness--by the one fact of his presence, came back on her. + +'There _is_ something rather awful in this dark and storm,' she said, +and paused. + +'Would you have faced it alone?' he asked, his voice thrilling her with +a hundred different meanings. 'I am glad I prevented it.' + +'I have no fear of the mountains,' she said, trembling. 'I know them, +and they me.' + +'But you are tired--your voice is tired--and the walk might have been +more of an effort than you thought it. Do you never think of yourself?' + +'Oh dear, yes,' said Catherine, trying to smile, and could find nothing +else to say. They walked on a few moments in silence, splashes of rain +breaking in their faces. Robert's inward excitement was growing fast. +Suddenly Catherine's pulse stood still. She felt her hand lifted, drawn +within his arm, covered close with his warm trembling clasp. + +'Catherine, let it stay there. Listen one moment. You gave me a hard +lesson yesterday, too hard--I cannot learn it--I am bold--I claim you. +Be my wife. Help me through this difficult world. I have loved you from +the first moment. Come to me. Be kind to me.' + +She could hardly see his face, but she could feel the passion in his +voice and touch. Her cheek seemed to droop against his arm. He felt her +tottering. + +'Let me sit down,' she said; and after one moment of dizzy silence he +guided her to a rock, sinking down himself beside her, longing, but not +daring, to shelter her under his broad Inverness cloak against the +storm. + +'I told you,' she said, almost whispering, 'that I was bound, tied to +others.' + +'I do not admit your plea,' he said passionately; 'no, not for a moment. +For two days have I been tramping over the mountains thinking it out for +yourself and me. Catherine, your mother has no son--she should find one +in me. I have no sisters--give me yours. I will cherish them as any +brother could. Come and enrich my life; you shall still fill and shelter +theirs. I dare not think what my future might be with you to guide, to +inspire, to bless--dare not, lest with a word you should plunge me into +an outer darkness I cannot face.' + +He caught her unresisting hand, and raised it to his lips. + +'Is there no sacredness,' he said brokenly, 'in the fate that has +brought us together--out of all the world--here in this lonely valley? +Come to me, Catherine. You shall never fail the old ties, I promise you; +and new hands shall cling to you--new voices shall call you blessed.' + +Catherine could hardly breathe. Every word had been like balm upon a +wound--like a ray of intense light in the gloom about them. Oh, where +was this softness bearing her--this emptiness of all will, of all +individual power? She hid her eyes with her other hand, struggling to +recall that far away moment in Marrisdale. But the mind refused to work. +Consciousness seemed to retain nothing but the warm grasp of his +hand--the tones of his voice. + +He saw her struggle, and pressed on remorselessly. + +'Speak to me--say one little kind word. Oh, you cannot send me away +miserable and empty!' + +She turned to him, and laid her trembling free hand on his arm. He +clasped them both with rapture. + +'Give me a little time.' + +'No, no,' he said, and it almost seemed to her that he was smiling: +'time for you to escape me again, my wild mountain bird; time for you to +think yourself and me into all sorts of moral mists! No, you shall not +have it. Here, alone with God and the dark--bless me or undo me. Send me +out to the work of life maimed and sorrowful, or send me out your +knight, your possession, pledged----' + +But his voice failed him. What a note of youth, of imagination, of +impulsive eagerness there was through it all! The more slowly-moving +inarticulate nature was swept away by it. There was but one object clear +to her in the whole world of thought or sense, everything else had sunk +out of sight--drowned in a luminous mist. + +He rose and stood before her as he delivered his ultimatum, his tall +form drawn up to its full height. In the east, across the valley, above +the farther buttress of High Fell, there was a clearer strip of sky, +visible for a moment among the moving storm clouds, and a dim haloed +moon shone out in it. Far away a white-walled cottage glimmered against +the fell; the pools at their feet shone in the weird passing light. + +She lifted her head, and looked at him, still irresolute. Then she too +rose, and helplessly, like some one impelled by a will not her own, she +silently held out to him two white trembling hands. + +'Catherine--my angel--my wife!' + +There was something in the pale virginal grace of look and form which +kept his young passion in awe. But he bent his head again over those +yielded hands, kissing them with dizzy unspeakable joy. + + * * * * * + +About twenty minutes later Catherine and Robert, having hurried back +with all speed from the top of Shanmoss, reached the farmhouse door. She +knocked. No one answered. She tried the lock; it yielded, and they +entered. No one in the kitchen. She looked disturbed and +conscience-stricken. + +'Oh!' she cried to him, under her breath; 'have we been too long?' And +hurrying into the inner room she left him waiting. + +Inside was a mournful sight. The two men and Mrs. Irwin stood close +round the settle, but as she came nearer, Catherine saw Mary Backhouse +lying panting on her pillows, her breath coming in loud gasps, her dress +and all the coverings of the bed showing signs of disorder and +confusion, her black hair tossed about her. + +'It's bin awfu' work sence you left, miss,' whispered Mrs. Irwin to +Catherine excitedly, as she joined them. 'She thowt she heerd soombody +fleytin' and callin'--it was t' wind came skirlin' round t' place, an' +she aw' but thrown hirsel' oot o' t' bed, an' aa shooted for Jim, and +they came, and they and I--it's bin as much as we could a' du to hod +'er.' + +'Luke! Steady!' exclaimed Jim. 'She'll try it again.' + +For the hands were moving restlessly from side to side, and the face was +working again. There was one more desperate effort to rise, which the +two men checked--gently enough, but effectually--and then the exhaustion +seemed complete. The lids fell, and the struggle for breath was pitiful. + +Catherine flew for some drugs which the doctor had left, and shown her +how to use. After some twenty minutes they seemed to give relief, and +the great haunted eyes opened once more. + +Catherine held barley-water to the parched lips, and Mary drank +mechanically, her gaze still intently fixed on her nurse. When Catherine +put down the glass the eyes followed her with a question which the lips +had no power to frame. + +'Leave her now a little,' said Catherine to the others. 'The fewer +people and the more air the better. And please let the door be open; the +room is too hot.' + +They went out silently, and Catherine sank down beside the bed. Her +heart went out in unspeakable longing towards the poor human wreck +before her. For her there was no morrow possible, no dawn of other and +softer skies. All was over: life was lived, and all its heavenly +capabilities missed for ever. Catherine felt her own joy hurt her, and +her tears fell fast. + +'Mary,' she said, laying her face close beside the chill face on the +pillow, 'Mary, I went out; I climbed all the path as far as Shanmoss. +There was nothing evil there. Oh, I must tell you! _Can_ I make you +understand? I want you to feel that it is only God and love that are +real. Oh, think of them! He would not let you be hurt and terrified in +your pain, poor Mary. He loves you. He is waiting to comfort you--to set +you free from pain for ever; and He has sent you a sign by me.' ... She +lifted her head from the pillow, trembling and hesitating. Still that +feverish questioning gaze on the face beneath her, as it lay in deep +shadow cast by a light on the window-sill some paces away. + +'You sent me out, Mary, to search for something, the thought of which +has been tormenting and torturing you. You thought God would let a dark +lost spirit trouble you and take you away from Him--you, His child, whom +He made and whom He loves! And listen! While you thought you were +sending me out to face the evil thing, you were really my kind +angel--God's messenger--sending me to meet the joy of my whole life! + +'There was some one waiting here just now,' she went on hurriedly, +breathing her sobbing words into Mary's ear. 'Some one who has loved me, +and whom I love. But I had made him sad, and myself; then when you sent +me out he came too; we walked up that path, you remember, beyond the +larchwood, up to the top, where the stream goes under the road. And +there he spoke to me, and I couldn't help it any more. And I promised to +love him and be his wife. And if it hadn't been for you, Mary, it would +never have happened. God had put it into your hand, this joy, and I +bless you for it! Oh, and Mary--Mary--it is only for a little little +while this life of ours! Nothing matters--not our worst sin and +sorrow--but God, and our love to Him. I shall meet you some day--I pray +I may--in His sight and all will be well, the pain all forgotten--all!' + +She raised herself again and looked down with yearning passionate pity +on the shadowed form. Oh, blessed answer of heart to heart! There were +tears forming under the heavy lids, the corners of the lips were relaxed +and soft. Slowly the feeble hand sought her own. She waited in an +intense expectant silence. + +There was a faint breathing from the lips; she stooped and caught it. + +'Kiss me!' said the whisper; and she laid her soft fresh lips to the +parched mouth of the dying. When she lifted her head again Mary still +held her hand; Catherine softly stretched out hers for the opiate Dr. +Baker had left; it was swallowed without resistance, and a quiet to +which the invalid had been a stranger for days stole little by little +over the wasted frame. The grasp of the fingers relaxed, the laboured +breath came more gently, and in a few more minutes she slept. Twilight +was long over. The ghost-hour was past, and the moon outside was slowly +gaining a wider empire in the clearing heavens. + + * * * * * + +It was a little after ten o'clock when Rose drew aside the curtain at +Burwood and looked out. + +'There is the lantern,' she said to Agnes, 'just by the vicarage. How +the night has cleared!' + +She turned back to her book. Agnes was writing letters. Mrs. Leyburn was +sitting by the bit of fire that was generally lit for her benefit in the +evenings, her white shawl dropping gracefully about her, a copy of the +_Cornhill_ on her lap. But she was not reading, she was meditating, and +the girls thought her out of spirits. The hall door opened. + +'There is some one with Catherine!' cried Rose, starting up. Agnes +suspended her letter. + +'Perhaps the vicar,' said Mrs. Leyburn, with a little sigh. + +A hand turned the drawing-room door, and in the doorway stood Elsmere. +Rose caught a gray dress disappearing up the little stairs behind him. + +Elsmere's look was enough for the two girls. They understood in an +instant. Rose flushed all over. The first contact with love is +intoxicating to any girl of eighteen, even though the romance be not +hers. But Mrs. Leyburn sat bewildered. + +Elsmere went up to her, stooped and took her hand. + +'Will you give her to me, Mrs. Leyburn?' he said, his boyish looks +aglow, his voice unsteady. 'Will you let me be a son to you?' + +Mrs. Leyburn rose. He still held her hand. She looked up at him +helplessly. + +'Oh, Mr. Elsmere, where is Catherine?' + +'I brought her home,' he said gently. 'She is mine, if you will it. Give +her to me again!' + +Mrs. Leyburn's face worked pitifully. The rectory and the wedding dress, +which had lingered so regretfully in her thoughts since her last sight +of Catherine, sank out of them altogether. + +'She has been everything in the world to us, Mr. Elsmere.' + +'I know she has,' he said simply. 'She shall be everything in the world +to you still. I have had hard work to persuade her. There will be no +chance for me if you don't help me.' + +Another breathless pause. Then Mrs. Leyburn timidly drew him to her, and +he stooped his tall head and kissed her like a son. + +'Oh, I must go to Catherine!' she said, hurrying away, her pretty +withered cheeks wet with tears. + +Then the girls threw themselves on Elsmere. The talk was all animation +and excitement for the moment, not a tragic touch in it. It was as well +perhaps that Catherine was not there to hear! + +'I give you fair warning,' said Rose, as she bade him good-night, 'that +I don't know how to behave to a brother. And I am equally sure that Mrs. +Thornburgh doesn't know how to behave to a _fiance_.' + +Robert threw up his arms in mock terror at the name, and departed. + +'We are abandoned,' cried Rose, flinging herself into the chair +again--then with a little flash of half irresolute wickedness--'and we +are free! Oh, I hope she will be happy!' + +And she caught Agnes wildly round the neck as though she would drown her +first words in her last. + +'Madcap!' cried Agnes, struggling. 'Leave me at least a little breath to +wish Catherine joy!' + +And they both fled upstairs. + +There was indeed no prouder woman in the three kingdoms than Mrs. +Thornburgh that night. After all the agitation downstairs she could not +persuade herself to go to bed. She first knocked up Sarah and +communicated the news; then she sat down before a pier-glass in her own +room studying the person who had found Catherine Leyburn a husband. + +'My doing from beginning to end,' she cried with a triumph beyond words. +'William has had _nothing_ to do with it. Robert has had scarcely as +much. And to think how little I dreamt of it when I began! Well, to be +sure, no one could have _planned_ marrying those two. There's no one but +Providence could have foreseen it--they're so different. And after all +it's _done_. Now then, whom shall I have next year?' + + + + +BOOK II + +SURREY + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Farewell to the mountains! + +The scene in which the next act of this unpretending history is to run +its course is of a very different kind. In place of the rugged northern +nature--a nature wild and solitary indeed, but still rich, luxuriant, +and friendly to the senses of the traveller, even in its loneliest +places. The heaths and woods of some districts of Surrey are scarcely +more thickly peopled than the fells of Westmoreland; the walker may +wander for miles, and still enjoy an untamed primitive earth, guiltless +of boundary or furrow, the undisturbed home of all that grows and flies, +where the rabbits, the lizards, and the birds live their life as they +please, either ignorant of intruding man or strangely little incommoded +by his neighbourhood. And yet there is nothing forbidding or austere in +these wide solitudes. The patches of graceful birch-wood; the miniature +lakes nestling among them; the brakes of ling--pink, faintly scented, a +feast for every sense; the stretches of purple heather, glowing into +scarlet under the touch of the sun; the scattered farm-houses, so mellow +in colour, so pleasant in outline; the general softness and lavishness +of the earth and all it bears, make these Surrey commons not a +wilderness but a paradise. Nature, indeed, here is like some spoilt +petulant child. She will bring forth nothing, or almost nothing, for +man's grosser needs. Ask her to bear corn or pasture flocks, and she +will be miserly and grudging. But ask her only to be beautiful, +enticing, capriciously lovely, and she will throw herself into the task +with all the abandonment, all the energy, that heart could wish. + +It is on the borders of one of the wilder districts of a county, which +is throughout a strange mixture of suburbanism and the desert, that we +next meet with Robert and Catherine Elsmere. The rectory of Murewell +occupied the highest point of a gentle swell of ground which sloped +through cornfields and woods to a plain of boundless heather on the +south, and climbed away on the north towards the long chalk ridge of the +Hog's Back. It was a square white house pretending neither to beauty nor +state, a little awkwardly and barely placed, with only a small stretch +of grass and a low hedge between it and the road. A few tall firs +climbing above the roof gave a little grace and clothing to its southern +side, and behind it there was a garden sloping softly down towards the +village at its foot--a garden chiefly noticeable for its grass walks, +the luxuriance of the fruit trees clinging to its old red walls, and the +masses of pink and white phloxes which now in August gave it the +floweriness and the gaiety of an Elizabethan song. Below in the hollow +and to the right lay the picturesque medley of the village--roofs and +gables and chimneys, yellow-gray thatch, shining whitewash, and mellowed +brick, making a bright patchwork among the softening trees, thin wreaths +of blue smoke, like airy ribbons, tangled through it all. Rising over +the rest was a house of some dignity. It had been an old manor-house, +now it was half ruinous and the village inn. Some generations back the +squire of the day had dismantled it, jealous that so big a house should +exist in the same parish as the Hall, and the spoils of it had furnished +the rectory; so that the homely house was fitted inside with mahogany +doors and carved cupboard fronts, in which Robert delighted, and in +which even Catherine felt a proprietary pleasure. + +Altogether a quiet, rural, English spot. If the house had no beauty, it +commanded a world of loveliness. All around it--north, south, and +west--there spread, as it were, a vast playground of heather and wood +and grassy common, in which the few workaday patches of hedge and +ploughed land seemed ingulfed and lost. Close under the rectory windows, +however, was a vast sloping cornfield, belonging to the glebe, the +largest and fruitfulest of the neighbourhood. At the present moment it +was just ready for the reaper--the golden ears had clearly but a few +more days or hours to ripple in the sun. It was bounded by a dark +summer-scorched belt of wood, and beyond, over the distance, rose a blue +pointed hill, which seemed to be there only to attract and make a centre +for the sunsets. + +As compared with her Westmoreland life, the first twelve months of +wifehood had been to Catherine Elsmere a time of rapid and changing +experience. A few days out of their honeymoon had been spent at Oxford. +It was a week before the opening of the October term, but many of the +senior members of the University were already in residence, and the +stagnation of the Long Vacation was over. Langham was up; so was Mr. +Grey, and many another old friend of Robert's. The bride and bridegroom +were much feted in a quiet way. They dined in many common rooms and +bursaries; they were invited to many luncheons, whereat the +superabundance of food and the length of time spent upon it made the +Puritan Catherine uncomfortable; and Langham devoted himself to taking +the wife through colleges and gardens, Schools and Bodleian, in most +orthodox fashion, indemnifying himself afterwards for the sense of +constraint her presence imposed upon him by a talk and a smoke with +Robert. + +He could not understand the Elsmere marriage. That a creature so mobile, +so sensitive, so susceptible as Elsmere should have fallen in love with +this stately silent woman, with her very evident rigidities of thought +and training, was only another illustration of the mysteries of +matrimony. He could not get on with her, and after a while did not try +to do so. + +There could be no doubt as to Elsmere's devotion. He was absorbed, +wrapped up in her. + +'She has affected him,' thought the tutor, 'at a period of life when he +is more struck by the difficulty of being morally strong than by the +difficulty of being intellectually clear. The touch of religious genius +in her braces him like the breath of an Alpine wind. One can see him +expanding, glowing under it. _Bien!_ sooner he than I. To be fair, +however, let me remember that she decidedly does not like me--which may +cut me off from Elsmere. However'--and Langham sighed over his +fire--'what have he and I to do with one another in the future? By all +the laws of character something untoward might come out of this +marriage. But she will mould him, rather than he her. Besides, she will +have children--and that solves most things.' + +Meanwhile, if Langham dissected the bride as he dissected most people, +Robert, with that keen observation which lay hidden somewhere under his +careless boyish ways, noticed many points of change about his old +friend. Langham seemed to him less human, more strange, than ever; the +points of contact between him and active life were lessening in number +term by term. He lectured only so far as was absolutely necessary for +the retention of his post, and he spoke with wholesale distaste of his +pupils. He had set up a book on 'The Schools of Athens,' but when Robert +saw the piles of disconnected notes already accumulated, he perfectly +understood that the book was a mere blind, a screen, behind which a +difficult fastidious nature trifled and procrastinated as it pleased. + +Again, when Elsmere was an undergraduate Langham and Grey had been +intimate. Now, Langham's tone _a propos_ of Grey's politics and Grey's +dreams of Church Reform was as languidly sarcastic as it was with regard +to most of the strenuous things of life. 'Nothing particular is true,' +his manner said, 'and all action is a degrading _pis-aller_. Get through +the day somehow, with as little harm to yourself and other people as may +be; do your duty if you like it, but, for heaven's sake, don't cant +about it to other people!' + +If the affinities of character count for much, Catherine and Henry Grey +should certainly have understood each other. The tutor liked the look of +Elsmere's wife. His kindly brown eyes rested on her with pleasure; he +tried in his shy but friendly way to get at her, and there was in both +of them a touch of homeliness, a sheer power of unworldliness that +should have drawn them together. And indeed Catherine felt the charm, +the spell of this born leader of men. But she watched him with a sort +of troubled admiration, puzzled, evidently, by the halo of moral dignity +surrounding him, which contended with something else in her mind +respecting him. Some words of Robert's, uttered very early in their +acquaintance, had set her on her guard. Speaking of religion, Robert had +said, 'Grey is not one of us'; and Catherine, restrained by a hundred +ties of training and temperament, would not surrender herself, and could +not if she would. + +Then had followed their home-coming to the rectory, and that first +institution of their common life, never to be forgotten for the +tenderness and the sacredness of it. Mrs. Elsmere had received them, and +had then retired to a little cottage of her own close by. She had of +course already made the acquaintance of her daughter-in-law, for she had +been the Thornburghs' guest for ten days before the marriage in +September, and Catherine, moreover, had paid her a short visit earlier +in the summer. But it was now that for the first time she realised to +the full the character of the woman Robert had married. Catherine's +manner to her was sweetness itself. Parted from her own mother as she +was, the younger woman's strong filial instincts spent themselves in +tending the mother who had been the guardian and life of Robert's youth. +And Mrs. Elsmere in return was awed by Catherine's moral force and +purity of nature, and proud of her personal beauty, which was so real, +in spite of the severity of the type, and to which marriage had given, +at any rate for the moment, a certain added softness and brilliancy. + +But there were difficulties in the way. Catherine was a little too apt +to treat Mrs. Elsmere as she would have treated her own mother. But to +be nursed and protected, to be screened from draughts, and run after +with shawls and stools was something wholly new and intolerable to Mrs. +Elsmere. She could not away with it, and as soon as she had sufficiently +lost her first awe of her daughter-in-law she would revenge herself in +all sorts of droll ways, and with occasional flashes of petulant Irish +wit which would make Catherine colour and draw back. Then Mrs. Elsmere, +touched with remorse, would catch her by the neck and give her a +resounding kiss, which perhaps puzzled Catherine no less than her +sarcasm of a minute before. + +Moreover Mrs. Elsmere felt ruefully from the first that her new daughter +was decidedly deficient in the sense of humour. + +'I believe it's that father of hers,' she would say to herself crossly. +'By what Robert tells me of him he must have been one of the people who +get ill in their minds for want of a good mouth-filling laugh now and +then. The man who can't amuse himself a bit out of the world is sure to +get his head addled somehow, poor creature.' + +Certainly it needed a faculty of laughter to be always able to take Mrs. +Elsmere on the right side. For instance, Catherine was more often +scandalised than impressed by her mother-in-law's charitable +performances. + +Mrs. Elsmere's little cottage was filled with workhouse orphans sent to +her from different London districts. The training of these girls was the +chief business of her life, and a very odd training it was, conducted in +the noisiest way and on the most familiar terms. It was undeniable that +the girls generally did well, and they invariably adored Mrs. Elsmere, +but Catherine did not much like to think about them. Their household +teaching under Mrs. Elsmere and her old servant Martha--as great an +original as herself--was so irregular, their religious training so +extraordinary, the clothes in which they were allowed to disport +themselves so scandalous to the sober taste of the rector's wife, that +Catherine involuntarily regarded the little cottage on the hill as a +spot of misrule in the general order of the parish. She would go in, +say, at eleven o'clock in the morning, find her mother-in-law in bed, +half-dressed, with all her handmaidens about her, giving her orders, +reading her letters and the newspaper, cutting out her girls' frocks, +instructing them in the fashions, or delivering little homilies on +questions suggested by the news of the day to the more intelligent of +them. The room, the whole house, would seem to Catherine in a detestable +litter. If so, Mrs. Elsmere never apologised for it. On the contrary, as +she saw Catherine sweep a mass of miscellaneous _debris_ off a chair in +search of a seat, the small bright eyes would twinkle with something +that was certainly nearer amusement than shame. + +And in a hundred other ways Mrs. Elsmere's relations with the poor of +the parish often made Catherine miserable. She herself had the most +angelic pity and tenderness for sorrows and sinners; but sin was sin to +her, and when she saw Mrs. Elsmere more than half attracted by the +stronger vices, and in many cases more inclined to laugh with what was +human in them than to weep over what was vile, Robert's wife would go +away and wrestle with herself, that she might be betrayed into nothing +harsh towards Robert's mother. + +But fate allowed their differences, whether they were deep or shallow, +no time to develop. A week of bitter cold at the beginning of January +struck down Mrs. Elsmere, whose strange ways of living were more the +result of certain long-standing delicacies of health than she had ever +allowed any one to imagine. A few days of acute inflammation of the +lungs, borne with a patience and heroism which showed the Irish +character at its finest--a moment of agonised wrestling with that terror +of death which had haunted the keen vivacious soul from its earliest +consciousness, ending in a glow of spiritual victory--and Robert found +himself motherless. He and Catherine had never left her since the +beginning of the illness. In one of the intervals towards the end, when +there was a faint power of speech, she drew Catherine's cheek down to +her and kissed her. + +'God bless you!' the old woman's voice said, with a solemnity in it +which Robert knew well, but which Catherine had never heard before. 'Be +good to him, Catherine--be always good to him!' + +And she lay looking from the husband to the wife with a certain +wistfulness which pained Catherine, she knew not why. But she answered +with tears and tender words, and at last the mother's face settled into +a peace which death did but confirm. + +This great and unexpected loss, which had shaken to their depths all the +feelings and affections of his youth, had thrown Elsmere more than ever +on his wife. To him, made as it seemed for love and for enjoyment, grief +was a novel and difficult burden. He felt with passionate gratitude that +his wife helped him to bear it so that he came out from it not lessened +but ennobled, that she preserved him from many a lapse of nervous +weariness and irritation into which his temperament might easily have +been betrayed. + +And how his very dependence had endeared him to Catherine! That +vibrating responsive quality in him, so easily mistaken for mere +weakness, which made her so necessary to him--there is nothing perhaps +which wins more deeply upon a woman. For all the while it was balanced +in a hundred ways by the illimitable respect which his character and his +doings compelled from those about him. To be the strength, the inmost +joy of a man who within the conditions of his life seems to you a hero +at every turn--there is no happiness more penetrating for a wife than +this. + + * * * * * + +On this August afternoon the Elsmeres were expecting visitors. Catherine +had sent the pony-carriage to the station to meet Rose and Langham, who +was to escort her from Waterloo. For various reasons, all +characteristic, it was Rose's first visit to Catherine's new home. + +Now she had been for six weeks in London, and had been persuaded to come +on to her sister, at the end of her stay. Catherine was looking forward +to her coming with many tremors. The wild ambitious creature had been +not one atom appeased by Manchester and its opportunities. She had gone +back to Whindale in April only to fall into more hopeless discontent +than ever. 'She can hardly be civil to anybody,' Agnes wrote to +Catherine. 'The cry now is all "London" or at least "Berlin," and she +cannot imagine why papa should ever have wished to condemn us to such a +prison.' + +Catherine grew pale with indignation as she read the words, and thought +of her father's short-lived joy in the old house and its few green +fields, or of the confidence which had soothed his last moments, that it +would be well there with his wife and children, far from the hubbub of +the world. + +But Rose and her whims were not facts which could be put aside. They +would have to be grappled with, probably humoured. As Catherine +strolled out into the garden, listening alternately for Robert and for +the carriage, she told herself that it would be a difficult visit. And +the presence of Mr. Langham would certainly not diminish its difficulty. +The mere thought of him set the wife's young form stiffening. A cold +breath seemed to blow from Edward Langham, which chilled Catherine's +whole being. Why was Robert so fond of him? + +But the more Langham cut himself off from the world, the more Robert +clung to him in his wistful affectionate way. The more difficult their +intercourse became, the more determined the younger man seemed to be to +maintain it. Catherine imagined that he often scourged himself in secret +for the fact that the gratitude which had once flowed so readily had now +become a matter of reflection and resolution. + +'Why should we always expect to get pleasure from our friends?' he had +said to her once with vehemence. 'It should be pleasure enough to love +them.' And she knew very well of whom he was thinking. + +How late he was this afternoon. He must have been a long round. She had +news for him of great interest. The lodge-keeper from the Hall had just +looked in to tell the rector that the squire and his widowed sister were +expected home in four days. + +But, interesting as the news was, Catherine's looks as she pondered it +were certainly not looks of pleased expectation. Neither of them, +indeed, had much cause to rejoice in the squire's advent. Since their +arrival in the parish the splendid Jacobean Hall had been untenanted. +The squire, who was abroad with his sister at the time of their coming, +had sent a civil note to the new rector on his settlement in the parish, +naming some common Oxford acquaintances, and desiring him to make what +use of the famous Murewell Library he pleased. 'I hear of you as a +friend to letters,' he wrote; 'do my books a service by using them.' The +words were graceful enough. Robert had answered them warmly. He had also +availed himself largely of the permission they had conveyed. We shall +see presently that the squire, though absent, had already made a deep +impression on the young man's imagination. + +But unfortunately he came across the squire in two capacities. Mr. +Wendover was not only the owner of Murewell, he was also the owner of +the whole land of the parish, where, however, by a curious accident of +inheritance, dating some generations back, and implying some very remote +connection between the Wendover and Elsmere families, he was not the +patron of the living. Now the more Elsmere studied him under this +aspect, the deeper became his dismay. The estate was entirely in the +hands of an agent who had managed it for some fifteen years, and of +whose character the rector, before he had been two months in the parish, +had formed the very poorest opinion. Robert, entering upon his duties +with the ardour of the modern reformer, armed not only with charity but +with science, found himself confronted by the opposition of a man who +combined the shrewdness of an attorney with the callousness of a +drunkard. It seemed incredible that a great landowner should commit his +interests and the interests of hundreds of human beings to the hands of +such a person. + +By and by, however, as the rector penetrated more deeply into the +situation, he found his indignation transferring itself more and more +from the man to the master. It became clear to him that in some respects +Henslowe suited the squire admirably. It became also clear to him that +the squire had taken pains for years to let it be known that he cared +not one rap for any human being on his estate in any other capacity than +as a rent-payer or wage-receiver. What! Live for thirty years in that +great house, and never care whether your tenants and labourers lived +like pigs or like men, whether the old people died of damp, or the +children of diphtheria, which you might have prevented! Robert's brow +grew dark over it. + +The click of an opening gate. Catherine shook off her dreaminess at +once, and hurried along the path to meet her husband. In another moment +Elsmere came in sight, swinging along, a holly stick in his hand, his +face aglow with health and exercise and kindling at the sight of his +wife. She hung on his arm, and, with his hand laid tenderly on hers, he +asked her how she fared. She answered briefly, but with a little flush, +her eyes raised to his. She was within a few weeks of motherhood. + +Then they strolled along talking. He gave her an account of his +afternoon, which, to judge from the worried expression which presently +effaced the joy of their meeting, had been spent in some unsuccessful +effort or other. They paused after a while, and stood looking over the +plain before them to a spot beyond the nearer belt of woodland, where +from a little hollow about three miles off there rose a cloud of bluish +smoke. + +'He will do nothing!' cried Catherine, incredulous. + +'Nothing! It is the policy of the estate, apparently, to let the old and +bad cottages fall to pieces. He sneers at one for supposing any +landowner has money for "philanthropy" just now. If the people don't +like the houses they can go. I told him I should appeal to the squire as +soon as he came home.' + +'What did he say?' + +'He smiled, as much as to say, "Do as you like, and be a fool for your +pains." How the squire can let that man tyrannise over the estate as he +does, I cannot conceive. Oh, Catherine, I am full of qualms about the +squire!' + +'So am I,' she said, with a little darkening of her clear look. 'Old +Benham has just been in to say they are expected on Thursday.' + +Robert started. 'Are these our last days of peace?' he said +wistfully--'the last days of our honeymoon, Catherine?' + +She smiled at him with a little quiver of passionate feeling under the +smile. + +'Can anything touch that?' she said under her breath. + +'Do you know,' he said presently, his voice dropping, 'that it is only a +month to our wedding day? Oh, my wife, have I kept my promise--is the +new life as rich as the old?' + +She made no answer, except the dumb sweet answer that love writes on +eyes and lips. Then a tremor passed over her. + +'Are we too happy? Can it be well--be right?' + +'Oh, let us take it like children!' he cried, with a shiver, almost +petulantly. 'There will be dark hours enough. It is so good to be +happy.' + +She leant her cheek fondly against his shoulder. To her life always +meant self-restraint, self-repression, self-deadening, if need be. The +Puritan distrust of personal joy as something dangerous and ensnaring +was deep ingrained in her. It had no natural hold on him. + +They stood a moment hand in hand fronting the cornfield and the +sun-filled west, while the afternoon breeze blew back the man's curly +reddish hair, long since restored to all its natural abundance. + +Presently Robert broke into a broad smile. + +'What do you suppose Langham has been entertaining Rose with on the way, +Catherine? I wouldn't miss her remarks to-night on the escort we +provided her for a good deal.' + +Catherine said nothing, but her delicate eyebrows went up a little. +Robert stooped and lightly kissed her. + +'You never performed a greater act of virtue even in _your_ life, Mrs. +Elsmere, than when you wrote Langham that nice letter of invitation.' + +And then the young rector sighed, as many a boyish memory came crowding +upon him. + +A sound of wheels! Robert's long legs took him to the gate in a +twinkling, and he flung it open just as Rose drove up in fine style, a +thin dark man beside her. + +Rose lent her bright cheek to Catherine's kiss, and the two sisters +walked up to the door together, while Robert and Langham loitered after +them talking. + +'Oh, Catherine!' said Rose under her breath, as they got into the +drawing-room, with a little theatrical gesture, 'why on earth did you +inflict that man and me on each other for two mortal hours?' + +'Sh-sh!' said Catherine's lips, while her face gleamed with laughter. + +Rose sank flushed upon a chair, her eyes glancing up with a little +furtive anger in them as the two gentlemen entered the room. + +'You found each other easily at Waterloo?' asked Robert. + +'Mr. Langham would never have found _me_,' said Rose drily; 'but I +pounced on him at last--just, I believe, as he was beginning to cherish +the hope of an empty carriage and the solitary enjoyment of his +_Saturday Review_.' + +Langham smiled nervously. 'Miss Leyburn is too hard on a blind man,' he +said, holding up his eyeglass apologetically; 'it was my eyes, not my +will, that were at fault.' + +Rose's lip curled a little. 'And Robert,' she cried, bending forward as +though something had just occurred to her, 'do tell me--I vowed I would +ask--_is_ Mr. Langham a Liberal or a Conservative? _He_ doesn't know!' + +Robert laughed, so did Langham. + +'Your sister,' he said, flushing, 'will have one so very precise in all +one says.' + +He turned his handsome olive face towards her, an unwonted spark of +animation lighting up his black eyes. It was evident that he felt +himself persecuted, but it was not so evident whether he enjoyed the +process or disliked it. + +'Oh dear, no!' said Rose nonchalantly. 'Only I have just come from a +house where everybody either loathes Mr. Gladstone or would die for him +to-morrow. There was a girl of seven and a boy of nine who were always +discussing "Coercion" in the corners of the schoolroom. So, of course, I +have grown political too, and began to catechise Mr. Langham at once, +and when he said "he didn't know," I felt I should like to set those +children at him! They would soon put some principles into him!' + +'It is not generally lack of principle, Miss Rose,' said her +brother-in-law, 'that turns a man a doubter in politics, but too much!' + +And while he spoke, his eyes resting on Langham, his smile broadened as +he recalled all those instances in their Oxford past, when he had taken +a humble share in one of the herculean efforts on the part of Langham's +friends, which were always necessary whenever it was a question of +screwing a vote out of him on any debated University question. + +'How dull it must be to have too much principle!' cried Rose. 'Like a +mill choked with corn. No bread because the machine can't work!' + +'Defend me from my friends!' cried Langham, roused. 'Elsmere, when did I +give you a right to caricature me in this way? If I were interested,' he +added, subsiding into his usual hesitating ineffectiveness, 'I suppose I +should know my own mind.' + +And then seizing the muffins, he stood presenting them to Rose as though +in deprecation of any further personalities. Inside him there was a hot +protest against an unreasonable young beauty whom he had done his +miserable best to entertain for two long hours, and who in return had +made him feel himself more of a fool than he had done for years. Since +when had young women put on all these airs? In his young days they knew +their place. + +Catherine meanwhile sat watching her sister. The child was more +beautiful than ever, but in other outer respects the Rose of Long +Whindale had undergone much transformation. The puffed sleeves, the +aesthetic skirts, the naive adornments of bead and shell, the formless +hat, which it pleased her to imagine 'after Gainsborough,' had all +disappeared. She was clad in some soft fawn-coloured garment, cut very +much in the fashion; her hair was closely rolled and twisted about her +lightly-balanced head; everything about her was neat and fresh and +tight-fitting. A year ago she had been a damsel from the 'Earthly +Paradise'; now, so far as an English girl can achieve it, she might have +been a model for Tissot. In this phase, as in the other, there was a +touch of extravagance. The girl was developing fast, but had clearly not +yet developed. The restlessness, the self-consciousness of Long Whindale +were still there; out they spoke to the spectator in different ways. + +But in her anxious study of her sister Catherine did not forget her +place of hostess. 'Did our man bring you through the park, Mr. Langham?' +she asked him timidly. + +'Yes. What an exquisite old house!' he said, turning to her, and feeling +through all his critical sense the difference between the gentle +matronly dignity of the one sister and the young self-assertion of the +other. + +'Ah,' said Robert, 'I kept that as a surprise! Did you ever see a more +perfect place?' + +'What date?' + +'Early Tudor--as to the oldest part. It was built by a relation of +Bishop Fisher's; then largely rebuilt under James I. Elizabeth stayed +there twice. There is a trace of a visit of Sidney's. Waller was there, +and left a copy of verses in the library. Evelyn laid out a great deal +of the garden. Lord Clarendon wrote part of his History in the garden, +et cetera, et cetera. The place is steeped in associations, and as +beautiful as a dream to begin with.' + +'And the owner of all this is the author of _The Idols of the +Market-place_?' + +Robert nodded. + +'Did you ever meet him at Oxford? I believe he was there once or twice +during my time, but I never saw him.' + +'Yes,' said Langham, thinking. 'I met him at dinner at the +Vice-Chancellor's, now I remember. A bizarre and formidable person--very +difficult to talk to,' he added reflectively. + +Then as he looked up he caught a sarcastic twitch of Rose Leyburn's lip +and understood it in a moment. Incontinently he forgot the squire and +fell to asking himself what had possessed him on that luckless journey +down. He had never seemed to himself more perverse, more unmanageable; +and for once his philosophy did not enable him to swallow the certainty +that this slim flashing creature must have thought him a morbid idiot +with as much _sangfroid_ as usual. + +Robert interrupted his reflections by some Oxford question, and +presently Catherine carried off Rose to her room. On their way they +passed a door, beside which Catherine paused hesitating, and then with a +bright flush on the face, which had such maternal calm in it already, +she threw her arm round Rose and drew her in. It was a white empty room, +smelling of the roses outside, and waiting in the evening stillness for +the life that was to be. Rose looked at it all--at the piles of tiny +garments, the cradle, the pictures from Retsch's 'Song of the Bell,' +which had been the companion of their own childhood, on the walls--and +something stirred in the girl's breast. + +'Catherine, I believe you have everything you want, or you soon will +have!' she cried, almost with a kind of bitterness, laying her hands on +her sister's shoulders. + +'Everything but worthiness!' said Catherine softly, a mist rising in her +calm gray eyes. 'And you, Roeschen,' she added wistfully, 'have you been +getting a little more what you want?' + +'What's the good of asking?' said the girl, with a little shrug of +impatience. 'As if creatures like me ever got what they want! London has +been good fun certainly--if one could get enough of it. Catherine, how +long is that marvellous person going to stay?' and she pointed in the +direction of Langham's room. + +'A week,' said Catherine, smiling at the girl's disdainful tone. 'I was +afraid you didn't take to him.' + +'I never saw such a being before,' declared Rose--'never! I thought I +should never get a plain answer from him about anything. He wasn't even +quite certain it was a fine day! I wonder if you set fire to him whether +he would be sure it hurt! A week, you say? Heigh ho! what an age!' + +'Be kind to him,' said Catherine, discreetly veiling her own feelings, +and caressing the curly golden head as they moved towards the door. +'He's a poor lone don, and he was so good to Robert!' + +'Excellent reason for you, Mrs. Elsmere,' said Rose, pouting; 'but----' + +Her further remarks were cut short by the sound of the front-door bell. + +'Oh, I had forgotten Mr. Newcome!' cried Catherine, starting. 'Come down +soon, Rose, and help us through.' + +'Who is he?' inquired Rose sharply. + +'A High Church clergyman near here, whom Robert asked to tea this +afternoon,' said Catherine, escaping. + +Rose took her hat off very leisurely. The prospect downstairs did not +seem to justify despatch. She lingered and thought of 'Lohengrin' and +Albani, of the crowd of artistic friends that had escorted her to +Waterloo, of the way in which she had been applauded the night before, +of the joys of playing Brahms with a long-haired pupil of Rubinstein's, +who had dropped on one knee and kissed her hand at the end of it, etc. +During the last six weeks the colours of 'this threadbare world' had +been freshening before her in marvellous fashion. And now, as she stood +looking out, the quiet fields opposite, the sight of a cow pushing its +head through the hedge, the infinite sunset sky, the quiet of the house, +filled her with a sudden depression. How dull it all seemed--how wanting +in the glow of life! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Meanwhile downstairs a curious little scene was passing, watched by +Langham, who, in his usual anti-social way, had retreated into a corner +of his own as soon as another visitor appeared. Beside Catherine sat a +Ritualist clergyman in cassock and long cloak--a saint clearly, though +perhaps, to judge from the slight restlessness of movement that seemed +to quiver through him perpetually, an irritable one. But he had the +saint's wasted unearthly look, the ascetic brow high and narrow, the +veins showing through the skin, and a personality as magnetic as it was +strong. + +Catherine listened to the new-comer, and gave him his tea, with an +aloofness of manner which was not lost on Langham. 'She is the +Thirty-nine Articles in the flesh!' he said to himself. 'For her there +must neither be too much nor too little. How can Elsmere stand it?' + +Elsmere apparently was not perfectly happy. He sat balancing his long +person over the arm of a chair listening to the recital of some of the +High Churchman's parish troubles with a slight half-embarrassed smile. +The vicar of Nottingham was always in trouble. The narrative he was +pouring out took shape in Langham's sarcastic sense as a sort of +classical epic, with the High Churchman as a new champion of +Christendom, harassed on all sides by pagan parishioners, crass +churchwardens, and treacherous bishops. Catherine's fine face grew more +and more set, nay disdainful. Mr. Newcome was quite blind to it. Women +never entered into his calculations except as sisters or as penitents. +At a certain diocesan conference he had discovered a sympathetic fibre +in the young rector of Murewell, which had been to the imperious +persecuted zealot like water to the thirsty. He had come to-day, drawn +by the same quality in Elsmere as had originally attracted Langham to +the St. Anselm's undergraduate, and he sat pouring himself out with as +much freedom as if all his companions had been as ready as he was to die +for an alb, or to spend half their days in piously circumventing a +bishop. + +But presently the conversation had slid, no one knew how, from +Nottingham and its intrigues to London and its teeming East. Robert was +leading, his eye now on the apostolic-looking priest, now on his wife. +Mr. Newcome resisted, but Robert had his way. Then it came out that +behind these battles of kites and crows at Mottringham, there lay an +heroic period, when the pale ascetic had wrestled ten years with London +poverty, leaving health and youth and nerves behind him in the _melee_. +Robert dragged it out at last, that struggle, into open view, but with +difficulty. The Ritualist may glory in the discomfiture of an Erastian +bishop--what Christian dare parade ten years of love to God and man? And +presently round Elsmere's lip there dawned a little smile of triumph. +Catherine had shaken off her cold silence, her Puritan aloofness, was +bending forward eagerly--listening. Stroke by stroke, as the words and +facts were beguiled from him, all that was futile and quarrelsome in the +sharp-featured priest sank out of sight; the face glowed with inward +light; the stature of the man seemed to rise; the angel in him +unsheathed its wings. Suddenly a story of the slums that Mr. Newcome was +telling--a story of the purest Christian heroism told in the simplest +way--came to an end, and Catherine leaned towards him with a long +quivering breath. + +'Oh, thank you, thank you! That must have been a joy, a privilege!' + +Mr. Newcome turned and looked at her with surprise. + +'Yes, it was a privilege,' he said slowly--the story had been an account +of the rescue of a young country lad from a London den of thieves and +profligates--'you are right; it was just that.' + +And then some sensitive inner fibre of the man was set vibrating, and he +would talk no more of himself or his past, do what they would. + +So Robert had hastily to provide another subject, and he fell upon that +of the squire. + +Mr. Newcome's eyes flashed. + +'He is coming back? I am sorry for you, Elsmere. "Woe is me that I am +constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have my habitation among the +tents of Kedar!"' + +And he fell back in his chair, his lips tightening, his thin long hand +lying along the arm of it, answering to that general impression of +combat, of the spiritual athlete, that hung about him. + +'I don't know,' said Robert brightly, as he leant against the +mantelpiece looking curiously at his visitor. 'The squire is a man of +strong character, of vast learning. His library is one of the finest in +England, and it is at my service. I am not concerned with his opinions.' + +'Ah, I see,' said Newcome in his driest voice, but sadly. 'You are one +of the people who believe in what you call tolerance--I remember.' + +'Yes, that is an impeachment to which I plead guilty,' said Robert, +perhaps with equal dryness; 'and you--have your worries driven you to +throw tolerance overboard?' + +Newcome bent forward quickly. Strange glow and intensity of the +fanatical eyes--strange beauty of the wasted persecuting lips! + +'Tolerance!' he said with irritable vehemence--'tolerance! Simply +another name for betrayal, cowardice, desertion--nothing else. God, +Heaven, Salvation on the one side, the devil and hell on the other--and +one miserable life, one wretched sin-stained will, to win the battle +with; and in such a state of things _you_--' he drooped his voice, +throwing out every word with a scornful, sibilant emphasis--'_you_ would +have us behave as though our friends were our enemies and our enemies +our friends, as though eternal misery were a bagatelle and our faith a +mere alternative. _I stand for Christ_, and His foes are mine.' + +'By which I suppose you mean,' said Robert quietly, 'that you would shut +your door on the writer of _The Idols of the Market-place_?' + +'Certainly.' + +And the priest rose, his whole attention concentrated on Robert, as +though some deeper-lying motive were suddenly brought into play than any +suggested by the conversation itself. + +'Certainly. _Judge not_--so long as a man has not judged himself,--only +till then. As to an open enemy, the Christian's path is clear. We are +but soldiers under orders. What business have we to be truce-making on +our own account? The war is not ours, but God's!' + +Robert's eyes had kindled. He was about to indulge himself in such a +quick passage of arms as all such natures as his delight in, when his +look travelled past the gaunt figure of the Ritualist vicar to his wife. +A sudden pang smote, silenced him. She was sitting with her face raised +to Newcome; and her beautiful gray eyes were full of a secret passion of +sympathy. It was like the sudden re-emergence of something repressed, +the satisfaction of something hungry. Robert moved closer to her, and +the colour flushed over all his young boyish face. + +'To me,' he said in a low voice, his eyes fixed rather on her than on +Newcome, 'a clergyman has enough to do with those foes of Christ he +cannot choose but recognise. There is no making truce with vice or +cruelty. Why should we complicate our task and spend in needless +struggle the energies we might give to love and to our brother?' + +His wife turned to him. There was trouble in her look, then a swift +lovely dawn of something indescribable. Newcome moved away with a +gesture that was half bitterness, half weariness. + +'Wait, my friend,' he said slowly, 'till you have watched that man's +books eating the very heart out of a poor creature as I have. When you +have once seen Christ robbed of a soul that might have been His, by the +infidel of genius, you will loathe all this Laodicean cant of tolerance +as I do!' + +There was an awkward pause. Langham, with his eyeglass on, was carefully +examining the make of a carved paper-knife lying near him. The strained +preoccupied mind of the High Churchman had never taken the smallest +account of his presence, of which Robert had been keenly, not to say +humorously, conscious throughout. + +But after a minute or so the tutor got up, strolled forward, and +addressed Robert on some Oxford topic of common interest. Newcome, in a +kind of dream which seemed to have suddenly descended on him, stood near +them, his priestly cloak falling in long folds about him, his ascetic +face grave and rapt. Gradually, however, the talk of the two men +dissipated the mystical cloud about him. He began to listen, to catch +the savour of Langham's modes of speech, and of his languid indifferent +personality. + +'I must go,' he said abruptly, after a minute or two, breaking in upon +the friends' conversation. 'I shall hardly get home before dark.' + +He took a cold punctilious leave of Catherine, and a still colder and +slighter leave of Langham. Elsmere accompanied him to the gate. + +On the way the older man suddenly caught him by the arm. + +'Elsmere, let me--I am the elder by so many years--let me speak to you. +My heart goes out to you!' + +And the eagle face softened; the harsh commanding presence became +enveloping, magnetic. Robert paused and looked down upon him, a quick +light of foresight in his eye. He felt what was coming. + +And down it swept upon him, a hurricane of words hot from Newcome's +inmost being, a protest winged by the gathered passion of years against +certain 'dangerous tendencies' the elder priest discerned in the +younger, against the worship of intellect and science as such which +appeared in Elsmere's talk, in Elsmere's choice of friends. It was the +eternal cry of the mystic of all ages. + +'Scholarship! learning!' Eyes and lips flashed into a vehement scorn. +'You allow them a value in themselves, apart from the Christian's test. +It is the modern canker, the modern curse! Thank God, my years in London +burnt it out of me! Oh, my friend, what have you and I to do with all +these curious triflings, which lead men oftener to rebellion than to +worship? Is this a time for wholesale trust, for a maudlin universal +sympathy? Nay, rather a day of suspicion, a day of repression!--a time +for trampling on the lusts of the mind no less than the lusts of the +body, a time when it is better to believe than to know, to pray than to +understand!' + +Robert was silent a moment, and they stood together, Newcome's gaze of +fiery appeal fixed upon him. + +'We are differently made, you and I,' said the young rector at last with +difficulty. 'Where you see temptation I see opportunity. I cannot +conceive of God as the Arch-plotter against His own creation!' + +Newcome dropped his hold abruptly. + +'A groundless optimism,' he said with harshness. 'On the track of the +soul from birth to death there are two sleuth-hounds--Sin and Satan. +Mankind for ever flies them, is for ever vanquished and devoured. I see +life always as a thread-like path between abysses along which man +_creeps_'--and his gesture illustrated the words--'with bleeding hands +and feet towards one--narrow--solitary outlet. Woe to him if he turn to +the right hand or the left--"I will repay, saith the Lord!"' + +Elsmere drew himself up suddenly; the words seemed to him a blasphemy. +Then something stayed the vehement answer on his lips. It was a sense of +profound intolerable pity. What a maimed life! what an indomitable soul! +Husbandhood, fatherhood, and all the sacred education that flows from +human joy for ever self-forbidden, and this grim creed for recompense! + +He caught Newcome's hand with a kind of filial eagerness. + +'You are a perpetual lesson to me,' he said, most gently. 'When the +world is too much with me, I think of you and am rebuked. God bless you! +But I know myself. If I could see life and God as you see them for one +hour, I should cease to be a Christian in the next!' + +A flush of something like sombre resentment passed over Newcome's face. +There is a tyrannical element in all fanaticism, an element which makes +opposition a torment. He turned abruptly away, and Robert was left +alone. + +It was a still clear evening, rich in the languid softness and balm +which mark the first approaches of autumn. Elsmere walked back to the +house, his head uplifted to the sky which lay beyond the cornfield, his +whole being wrought into a passionate protest--a passionate invocation +of all things beautiful and strong and free, a clinging to life and +nature as to something wronged and outraged. + +Suddenly his wife stood beside him. She had come down to warn him that +it was late and that Langham had gone to dress; but she stood lingering +by his side after her message was given, and he made no movement to go +in. He turned to her, the exaltation gradually dying out of his face, +and at last he stooped and kissed her with a kind of timidity unlike +him. She clasped both hands on his arm and stood pressing towards him as +though to make amends--for she knew not what. Something--some sharp +momentary sense of difference, of antagonism, had hurt that inmost fibre +which is the conscience of true passion. She did the most generous, the +most ample penance for it as she stood there talking to him of +half-indifferent things, but with a magic, a significance of eye and +voice which seemed to take all the severity from her beauty and make her +womanhood itself. + + * * * * * + +At the evening meal Rose appeared in pale blue, and it seemed to +Langham, fresh from the absolute seclusion of college rooms in vacation, +that everything looked flat and stale beside her, beside the flash of +her white arms, the gleam of her hair, the confident grace of every +movement. He thought her much too self-conscious and self-satisfied; and +she certainly did not make herself agreeable to him; but for all that he +could hardly take his eyes off her; and it occurred to him once or twice +to envy Robert the easy childish friendliness she showed to him, and to +him alone of the party. The lack of real sympathy between her and +Catherine was evident to the stranger at once--what, indeed, could the +two have in common? He saw that Catherine was constantly on the point of +blaming, and Rose constantly on the point of rebelling. He caught the +wrinkling of Catherine's brow as Rose presently, in emulation apparently +of some acquaintances she had been making in London, let slip the names +of some of her male friends without the 'Mr.,' or launched into some +bolder affectation than usual of a comprehensive knowledge of London +society. The girl, in spite of all her beauty, and her fashion, and the +little studied details of her dress, was in reality so crude, so much of +a child under it all, that it made her audacities and assumptions the +more absurd, and he could see that Robert was vastly amused by them. + +But Langham was not merely amused by her. She was too beautiful and too +full of character. + +It astonished him to find himself afterwards edging over to the corner +where she sat with the rectory cat on her knee--an inferior animal, but +the best substitute for Chattie available. So it was, however; and once +in her neighbourhood he made another serious effort to get her to talk +to him. The Elsmeres had never seen him so conversational. He dropped +his paradoxical melancholy; he roared as gently as any sucking dove; and +Robert, catching from the pessimist of St. Anselm's, as the evening went +on, some hesitating commonplaces worthy of a bashful undergraduate on +the subject of the boats and Commemoration, had to beat a hasty retreat, +so greatly did the situation tickle his sense of humour. + +But the tutor made his various ventures under a discouraging sense of +failure. What a capricious ambiguous creature it was, how fearless, how +disagreeably alive to all his own damaging peculiarities! Never had he +been so piqued for years, and as he floundered about trying to find some +common ground where he and she might be at ease, he was conscious +throughout of her mocking indifferent eyes, which seemed to be saying to +him all the time, 'You are not interesting--no, not a bit! You are +tiresome, and I see through you, but I must talk to you, I suppose, +_faute de mieux_.' + +Long before the little party separated for the night Langham had given +it up, and had betaken himself to Catherine, reminding himself with some +sharpness that he had come down to study his friend's life, rather than +the humours of a provoking girl. How still the summer night was round +the isolated rectory; how fresh and spotless were all the appointments +of the house; what a Quaker neatness and refinement everywhere! He drank +in the scent of air and flowers with which the rooms were filled; for +the first time his fastidious sense was pleasantly conscious of +Catherine's grave beauty; and even the mystic ceremonies of family +prayer had a certain charm for him, pagan as he was. How much dignity +and persuasiveness it has still, he thought to himself, this commonplace +country life of ours, on its best sides! + +Half-past ten arrived. Rose just let him touch her hand; Catherine gave +him a quiet good-night, with various hospitable wishes for his nocturnal +comfort, and the ladies withdrew. He saw Robert open the door for his +wife, and catch her thin white fingers as she passed him with all the +secrecy and passion of a lover. + +Then they plunged into the study, he and Robert, and smoked their fill. +The study was an astonishing medley. Books, natural history specimens, a +half-written sermon, fishing-rods, cricket-bats, a huge medicine +cupboard--all the main elements of Elsmere's new existence were +represented there. In the drawing-room with his wife and his +sister-in-law he had been as much of a boy as ever; here clearly he was +a man, very much in earnest. What about? What did it all come to? Can +the English country clergyman do much with his life and his energies? +Langham approached the subject with his usual scepticism. + +Robert for a while, however, did not help him to solve it. He fell at +once to talking about the squire, as though it cleared his mind to talk +out his difficulties even to so ineffective a counsellor as Langham. +Langham, indeed, was but faintly interested in the squire's crimes as a +landlord, but there was a certain interest to be got out of the struggle +in Elsmere's mind between the attractiveness of the squire, as one of +the most difficult and original personalities of English letters, and +that moral condemnation of him as a man of possessions and ordinary +human responsibilities with which the young reforming rector was clearly +penetrated. So that, as long as he could smoke under it, he was content +to let his companion describe to him Mr. Wendover's connection with the +property, his accession to it in middle life after a long residence in +Germany, his ineffectual attempts to play the English country gentleman, +and his subsequent complete withdrawal from the life about him. + +'You have no idea what a queer sort of existence he lives in that huge +place,' said Robert with energy. 'He is not unpopular exactly with the +poor down here. When they want to belabour anybody they lay on at the +agent, Henslowe. On the whole, I have come to the conclusion the poor +like a mystery. They never see him; when he is here the park is shut up; +the common report is that he walks at night; and he lives alone in that +enormous house with his books. The county folk have all quarrelled with +him, or nearly. It pleases him to get a few of the humbler people about, +clergy, professional men, and so on, to dine with him sometimes. And he +often fills the Hall, I am told, with London people for a day or two. +But otherwise he knows no one, and nobody knows him.' + +'But you say he has a widowed sister? How does she relish the kind of +life?' + +'Oh; by all accounts,' said the rector with a shrug, 'she is as little +like other people as himself. A queer elfish little creature, they say, +as fond of solitude down here as the squire, and full of hobbies. In her +youth she was about the court. Then she married a canon of Warham, one +of the popular preachers, I believe, of the day. There is a bright +little cousin of hers, a certain Lady Helen Varley, who lives near here, +and tells me stories of her. She must be the most whimsical little +aristocrat imaginable. She liked her husband apparently, but she never +got over leaving London and the fashionable world, and is as hungry now, +after her long fast, for titles and big-wigs, as though she were the +purest parvenu. The squire of course makes mock of her, and she has no +influence with him. However, there is something naive in the stories +they tell of her. I feel as if I might get on with _her_. But the +squire!' + +And the rector, having laid down his pipe, took to studying his boots +with a certain dolefulness. + +Langham, however, who always treated the subjects of conversation +presented to him as an epicure treats foods, felt at this point that he +had had enough of the Wendovers, and started something else. + +'So you physic bodies as well as minds?' he said, pointing to the +medicine cupboard. + +'I should think so!' cried Robert, brightening at once. 'Last winter I +causticked all the diphtheritic throats in the place with my own hand. +Our parish doctor is an infirm old noodle, and I just had to do it. And +if the state of part of the parish remains what it is, it's a pleasure I +may promise myself most years. But it shan't remain what it is.' + +And the rector reached out his hand again for his pipe, and gave one or +two energetic puffs to it as he surveyed his friend stretched before him +in the depths of an armchair. + +'I will make myself a public nuisance, but the people shall have their +drains!' + +'It seems to me,' said Langham, musing, 'that in my youth people talked +about Ruskin; now they talk about drains.' + +'And quite right too. Dirt and drains, Catherine says I have gone mad +upon them. It's all very well, but they are the foundations of a sound +religion.' + +'Dirt, drains, and Darwin,' said Langham meditatively, taking up +Darwin's _Earthworms_, which lay on the study table beside him, side by +side with a volume of Grant Allen's _Sketches_. 'I didn't know you cared +for this sort of thing!' + +Robert did not answer for a moment, and a faint flush stole into his +face. + +'Imagine, Langham!' he said presently, 'I had never read even _The +Origin of Species_ before I came here. We used to take the thing half +for granted, I remember, at Oxford, in a more or less modified sense. +But to drive the mind through all the details of the evidence, to force +one's self to understand the whole hypothesis and the grounds for it, is +a very different matter. It is a revelation.' + +'Yes,' said Langham; and could not forbear adding, 'but it is a +revelation, my friend, that has not always been held to square with +other revelations.' + +In general these two kept carefully off the religious ground. The man +who is religious by nature tends to keep his treasure hid from the man +who is critical by nature, and Langham was much more interested in other +things. But still it had always been understood that each was free to +say what he would. + +'There was a natural panic,' said Robert, throwing back his head at the +challenge. 'Men shrank and will always shrink, say what you will, from +what seems to touch things dearer to them than life. But the panic is +passing. The smoke is clearing away, and we see that the battle-field is +falling into new lines. But the old truth remains the same. Where and +when and how you will, but somewhen and somehow, God created the heavens +and the earth!' + +Langham said nothing. It had seemed to him for long that the clergy were +becoming dangerously ready to throw the Old Testament overboard, and all +that it appeared to him to imply was that men's logical sense is easily +benumbed where their hearts are concerned. + +'Not that every one need be troubled with the new facts,' resumed Robert +after a while, going back to his pipe. 'Why should they? We are not +saved by Darwinism. I should never press them on my wife, for instance, +with all her clearness and courage of mind.' + +His voice altered as he mentioned his wife--grew extraordinarily soft, +even reverential. + +'It would distress her?' said Langham interrogatively, and inwardly +conscious of pursuing investigations begun a year before. + +'Yes, it would distress her. She holds the old ideas as she was taught +them. It is all beautiful to her, what may seem doubtful or grotesque to +others. And why should I or any one else trouble her? I above all, who +am not fit to tie her shoe-strings.' + +The young husband's face seemed to gleam in the dim light which fell +upon it. Langham involuntarily put up his hand in silence and touched +his sleeve. Robert gave him a quiet friendly look, and the two men +instantly plunged into some quite trivial and commonplace subject. + +Langham entered his room that night with a renewed sense of pleasure in +the country quiet, the peaceful flower-scented house. Catherine, who was +an admirable housewife, had put out her best guest-sheets for his +benefit, and the tutor, accustomed for long years to the second-best of +college service, looked at their shining surfaces and frilled edges, at +the freshly matted floor, at the flowers on the dressing-table, at the +spotlessness of everything in the room, with a distinct sense that +matrimony had its advantages. He had come down to visit the Elsmeres, +sustained by a considerable sense of virtue. He still loved Elsmere and +cared to see him. It was a much colder love, no doubt, than that which +he had given to the undergraduate. But the man altogether was a colder +creature, who for years had been drawing in tentacle after tentacle, and +becoming more and more content to live without his kind. Robert's +parsonage, however, and Robert's wife had no attractions for him; and it +was with an effort that he had made up his mind to accept the invitation +which Catherine had made an effort to write. + +And, after all, the experience promised to be pleasant. His fastidious +love for the quieter, subtler sorts of beauty was touched by the Elsmere +surroundings. And whatever Miss Leyburn might be, she was not +commonplace. The demon of convention had no large part in _her_! Langham +lay awake for a time analysing his impressions of her with some gusto, +and meditating, with a whimsical candour which seldom tailed him, on the +manner in which she had trampled on him, and the reasons why. + +He woke up, however, in a totally different frame of mind. He was +pre-eminently a person of moods, dependent, probably, as all moods are, +on certain obscure physical variations. And his mental temperature had +run down in the night. The house, the people who had been fresh and +interesting to him twelve hours before, were now the burden he had more +than half expected them to be. He lay and thought of the unbroken +solitude of his college rooms, of Senancour's flight from human kind, of +the uselessness of all friendship, the absurdity of all effort, and +could hardly persuade himself to get up and face a futile world, which +had, moreover, the enormous disadvantage for the moment of being a new +one. + +Convention, however, is master even of an Obermann. That prototype of +all the disillusioned had to cut himself adrift from the society of the +eagles on the Dent du Midi, to go and hang like any other ridiculous +mortal on the Paris law-courts. Langham, whether he liked it or no, had +to face the parsonic breakfast and the parsonic day. + +He had just finished dressing when the sound of a girl's voice drew him +to the window, which was open. In the garden stood Rose, on the edge of +the sunk fence dividing the rectory domain from the cornfield. She was +stooping forward playing with Robert's Dandie Dinmont. In one hand she +held a mass of poppies, which showed a vivid scarlet against her blue +dress; the other was stretched out seductively to the dog leaping round +her. A crystal buckle flashed at her waist; the sunshine caught the +curls of auburn hair, the pink cheek, the white moving hand, the lace +ruffles at her throat and wrist. The lithe glittering figure stood +thrown out against the heavy woods behind, the gold of the cornfield, +the blues of the distance. All the gaiety and colour which is as truly +representative of autumn as the gray languor of a September mist had +passed into it. + +Langham stood and watched, hidden, as he thought, by the curtain, till a +gust of wind shook the casement window beside him, and threatened to +blow it in upon him. He put out his hand perforce to save it, and the +slight noise caught Rose's ear. She looked up; her smile vanished. 'Go +down, Dandie,' she said severely, and walked quickly into the house with +as much dignity as nineteen is capable of. + +At breakfast the Elsmeres found their guest a difficulty. But they also, +as we know, had expected it. He was languor itself; none of their +conversational efforts succeeded; and Rose, studying him out of the +corners of her eyes, felt that it would be of no use even to torment so +strange and impenetrable a being. Why on earth should people come and +visit their friends if they could not keep up even the ordinary decent +pretences of society? + +Robert had to go off to some clerical business afterwards, and Langham +wandered out into the garden by himself. As he thought of his Greek +texts and his untenanted Oxford rooms, he had the same sort of craving +that an opium-eater has cut off from his drugs. How was he to get +through? + +Presently he walked back into the study, secured an armful of volumes, +and carried them out. True to himself in the smallest things, he could +never in his life be content with the companionship of one book. To cut +off the possibility of choice and change in anything whatever was +repugnant to him. + +He sat himself down under the shade of a great chestnut near the house, +and an hour glided pleasantly away. As it happened, however, he did not +open one of the books he had brought with him. A thought had struck him +as he sat down, and he went groping in his pockets in search of a +yellow-covered _brochure_, which, when found, proved to be a new play by +Dumas, just about to be produced by a French company in London. Langham, +whose passion for the French theatre supplied him, as we know, with a +great deal of life without the trouble of living, was going to see it, +and always made a point of reading the piece beforehand. + +The play turned upon a typical French situation, treated in a manner +rather more French than usual. The reader shrugged his shoulders a good +deal as he read on. 'Strange nation!' he muttered to himself after an +act or two. 'How they do revel in mud!' + +Presently, just as the fifth act was beginning to get hold of him with +that force which, after all, only a French playwright is master of, he +looked up and saw the two sisters coming round the corner of the house +from the great kitchen garden, which stretched its grass paths and +tangled flower-masses down the further slope of the hill. The transition +was sharp from Dumas's heated atmosphere of passion and crime to the +quiet English rectory, its rural surroundings, and the figures of the +two Englishwomen advancing towards him. + +Catherine was in a loose white dress with a black lace scarf draped +about her head and form. Her look hardly suggested youth, and there was +certainly no touch of age in it. Ripeness, maturity, serenity--these +were the chief ideas which seemed to rise in the mind at sight of her. + +'Are you amusing yourself, Mr. Langham?' she said, stopping beside him +and retaining with slight imperceptible force Rose's hand, which +threatened to slip away. + +'Very much. I have been skimming through a play, which I hope to see +next week, by way of preparation.' + +Rose turned involuntarily. Not wishing to discuss _Marianne_ with either +Catherine or her sister, Langham had just closed the book and was +returning it to his pocket. But she had caught sight of it. + +'You are reading _Marianne_,' she exclaimed, the slightest possible +touch of wonder in her tone. + +'Yes, it is _Marianne_,' said Langham, surprised in his turn. He had +very old-fashioned notions about the limits of a girl's acquaintance +with the world, knowing nothing, therefore, as may be supposed, about +the modern young woman, and he was a trifle scandalised by Rose's accent +of knowledge. + +'I read it last week,' she said carelessly; 'and the Piersons'--turning +to her sister--'have promised to take me to see it next winter if +Desforets comes again, as every one expects.' + +'Who wrote it?' asked Catherine innocently. The theatre not only gave +her little pleasure, but wounded in her a hundred deep unconquerable +instincts. But she had long ago given up in despair the hope of +protesting against Rose's dramatic instincts with success. + +'Dumas _fils_,' said Langham drily. He was distinctly a good deal +astonished. + +Rose looked at him, and something brought a sudden flame into her cheek. + +'It is one of the best of his,' she said defiantly. 'I have read a good +many others. Mrs. Pierson lent me a volume. And when I was introduced to +Madame Desforets last week, she agreed with me that _Marianne_ is nearly +the best of all.' + +All this, of course, with the delicate nose well in air. + +'You were introduced to Madame Desforets?' cried Langham, surprised this +time quite out of discretion. Catherine looked at him with anxiety. The +reputation of the black-eyed little French actress, who had been for a +year or two the idol of the theatrical public of Paris and London, had +reached even to her, and the tone of Langham's exclamation struck her +painfully. + +'I was,' said Rose proudly. 'Other people may think it a disgrace. _I_ +thought it an honour!' + +Langham could not help smiling, the girl's _naivete_ was so evident. It +was clear that, if she had read _Marianne_, she had never understood it. + +'Rose, you don't know!' exclaimed Catherine, turning to her sister with +a sudden trouble in her eyes. 'I don't think Mrs. Pierson ought to have +done that, without consulting mamma especially.' + +'Why not?' cried Rose vehemently. Her face was burning, and her heart +was full of something like hatred of Langham, but she tried hard to be +calm. + +'I think,' she said, with a desperate attempt at crushing dignity, 'that +the way in which all sorts of stories are believed against a woman, just +because she is an actress, is _disgraceful_! Just because a woman is on +the stage, everybody thinks they may throw stones at her. I _know_, +because--because she told me,' cried the speaker, growing, however, half +embarrassed as she spoke, 'that she feels the things that are said of +her deeply! She has been ill, very ill, and one of her friends said to +me, "You know it isn't her work, or a cold, or anything else that's made +her ill--it's calumny!" And so it is.' + +The speaker flashed an angry glance at Langham. She was sitting on the +arm of the cane chair into which Catherine had fallen, one hand grasping +the back of the chair for support, one pointed foot beating the ground +restlessly in front of her, her small full mouth pursed indignantly, the +greenish-gray eyes flashing and brilliant. + +As for Langham, the cynic within him was on the point of uncontrollable +laughter. Madame Desforets complaining of calumny to this little +Westmoreland maiden! But his eyes involuntarily met Catherine's, and the +expression of both fused into a common wonderment--amused on his side, +anxious on hers. 'What a child, what an infant it is!' they seemed to +confide to one another. Catherine laid her hand softly on Rose's, and +was about to say something soothing, which might secure her an opening +for some sisterly advice later on, when there was a sound of calling +from the gate. She looked up and saw Robert waving to her. Evidently he +had just run up from the school to deliver a message. She hurried across +the drive to him and afterwards into the house, while he disappeared. + +Rose got up from her perch on the armchair and would have followed, but +a movement of obstinacy or Quixotic wrath, or both, detained her. + +'At any rate, Mr. Langham,' she said, drawing herself up, and speaking +with the most lofty accent, 'if you don't know anything personally about +Madame Desforets, I think it would be much fairer to say nothing--and +not to assume at once that all you hear is true!' + +Langham had rarely felt more awkward than he did then, as he sat leaning +forward under the tree, this slim indignant creature standing over him, +and his consciousness about equally divided between a sense of her +absurdity and a sense of her prettiness. + +'You are an advocate worth having, Miss Leyburn,' he said at last, an +enigmatical smile he could not restrain playing about his mouth. 'I +could not argue with you; I had better not try.' + +Rose looked at him, at his dark regular face, at the black eyes which +were much vivider than usual, perhaps because they could not help +reflecting some of the irrepressible memories of Madame Desforets and +her _causes celebres_ which were coursing through the brain behind them, +and with a momentary impression of rawness, defeat, and yet involuntary +attraction, which galled her intolerably, she turned away and left him. + + * * * * * + +In the afternoon Robert was still unavailable, to his own great chagrin, +and Langham summoned up all his resignation and walked with the ladies. +The general impression left upon his mind by the performance was, first, +that the dust of an English August is intolerable, and, secondly, that +women's society ought only to be ventured on by the men who are made for +it. The views of Catherine and Rose may be deduced from his with +tolerable certainty. + +But in the late afternoon, when they thought they had done their duty by +him, and he was again alone in the garden reading, he suddenly heard the +sounds of music. + +Who was playing, and in that way? He got up and strolled past the +drawing-room window to find out. + +Rose had got hold of an accompanist, the timid dowdy daughter of a local +solicitor, with some capacity for reading, and was now, in her lavish +impetuous fashion, rushing through a quantity of new music, the +accumulations of her visit to London. She stood up beside the piano, her +hair gleaming in the shadow of the drawing-room, her white brow hanging +forward over her violin as she peered her way through the music, her +whole soul absorbed in what she was doing. Langham passed unnoticed. + +What astonishing playing! Why had no one warned him of the presence of +such a gift in this dazzling, prickly, unripe creature? He sat down +against the wall of the house, as close as possible, but out of sight, +and listened. All the romance of his spoilt and solitary life had come +to him so far through music, and through such music as this! For she was +playing Wagner, Brahms, and Rubinstein, interpreting all those +passionate voices of the subtlest moderns, through which the heart of +our own day has expressed itself even more freely and exactly than +through the voice of literature. Hans Sachs' immortal song, echoes from +the love duets in 'Tristan und Isolde,' fragments from a wild and alien +dance-music, they rippled over him in a warm intoxicating stream of +sound, stirring association after association, and rousing from sleep a +hundred bygone moods of feeling. + +What magic and mastery in the girl's touch! What power of divination, +and of rendering! Ah! she too was floating in passion and romance, but +of a different sort altogether from the conscious reflected product of +the man's nature. She was not thinking of the past, but of the future; +she was weaving her story that was to be into the flying notes, playing +to the unknown of her Whindale dreams, the strong ardent +unknown,--'insufferable, if he pleases, to all the world besides, but to +_me_ heaven!' She had caught no breath yet of his coming, but her heart +was ready for him. + +Suddenly, as she put down her violin, the French window opened, and +Langham stood before her. She looked at him with a quick stiffening of +the face which a minute before had been all quivering and relaxed, and +his instant perception of it chilled the impulse which had brought him +there. + +He said something _banal_ about his enjoyment, something totally +different from what he had meant to say. The moment presented itself, +but he could not seize it or her. + +'I had no notion you cared for music,' she said carelessly, as she shut +the piano, and then she went away. + +Langham felt a strange fierce pang of disappointment. What had he meant +to do or say? Idiot! What common ground was there between him and any +such exquisite youth? What girl would ever see in him anything but the +dull remains of what once had been a man! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The next day was Sunday. Langham, who was as depressed and home-sick as +ever, with a certain new spice of restlessness, not altogether +intelligible to himself, thrown in, could only brace himself to the +prospect by the determination to take the English rural Sunday as the +subject of severe scientific investigation. He would 'do it' thoroughly. + +So he donned a black coat and went to church with the rest. There, in +spite of his boredom with the whole proceeding, Robert's old tutor was a +good deal more interested by Robert's sermon than he had expected to be. +It was on the character of David, and there was a note in it, a note of +historical imagination, a power of sketching in a background of +circumstance, and of biting into the mind of the listener, as it were, +by a detail or an epithet, which struck Langham as something new in his +experience of Elsmere. He followed it at first as one might watch a game +of skill, enjoying the intellectual form of it, and counting the good +points, but by the end he was not a little carried away. The peroration +was undoubtedly very moving, very intimate, very modern, and Langham up +to a certain point was extremely susceptible to oratory, as he was to +music and acting. The critical judgment, however, at the root of him +kept coolly repeating as he stood watching the people defile out of the +church: 'This sort of thing will go down, will make a mark; Elsmere is +at the beginning of a career!' + +In the afternoon Robert, who was feeling deeply guilty towards his wife, +in that he had been forced to leave so much of the entertainment of +Langham to her, asked his old friend to come for him to the school at +four o'clock and take him for a walk between two engagements. Langham +was punctual, and Robert carried him off first to see the Sunday +cricket, which was in full swing. During the past year the young rector +had been developing a number of outdoor capacities which were probably +always dormant in his Elsmere blood, the blood of generations of country +gentlemen, but which had never had full opportunity before. He talked of +fishing as Kingsley might have talked of it, and, indeed, with constant +quotations from Kingsley; and his cricket, which had been good enough at +Oxford to get him into his College eleven, had stood him in specially +good stead with the Murewell villagers. That his play was not elegant +they were not likely to find out; his bowling they set small store by; +but his batting was of a fine, slashing, superior sort which soon +carried the Murewell Club to a much higher position among the clubs of +the neighbourhood than it had ever yet aspired to occupy. + +The rector had no time to play on Sundays, however, and, after they had +hung about the green a little while, he took his friend over to the +Workmen's Institute, which stood at the edge of it. He explained that +the Institute had been the last achievement of the agent before +Henslowe, a man who had done his duty to the estate according to his +lights, and to whom it was owing that those parts of it, at any rate, +which were most in the public eye, were still in fair condition. + +The Institute was now in bad repair and too small for the place. 'But +catch that man doing anything for us!' exclaimed Robert hotly. 'He will +hardly mend the roof now, merely, I believe, to spite me. But come and +see my new Naturalists' Club.' + +And he opened the Institute door. Langham followed in the temper of one +getting up a subject for examination. + +Poor Robert! His labour and his enthusiasm deserved a more appreciative +eye. He was wrapped up in his Club, which had been the great success of +his first year, and he dragged Langham through it all, not indeed, +sympathetic creature that he was, without occasional qualms. 'But after +all,' he would say to himself indignantly, 'I must do _something_ with +him.' + +Langham, indeed, behaved with resignation. He looked at the collections +for the year, and was quite ready to take it for granted that they were +extremely creditable. Into the old-fashioned window-sills glazed +compartments had been fitted, and these were now fairly filled with +specimens, with eggs, butterflies, moths, beetles, fossils, and what +not. A case of stuffed tropical birds presented by Robert stood in the +centre of the room; another containing the birds of the district was +close by. On a table farther on stood two large open books, which served +as records of observations on the part of members of the Club. In one, +which was scrawled over with mysterious hieroglyphs, any one might write +what he would. In the other, only such facts and remarks as had passed +the gauntlet of a Club meeting were recorded in Robert's neatest hand. +On the same table stood jars full of strange creatures--tadpoles and +water larvae of all kinds, over which Robert hung now absorbed, poking +among them with a straw, while Langham, to whom only the generalisations +of science were congenial, stood by and mildly scoffed. + +As they came out a great loutish boy, who had evidently been hanging +about waiting for the rector, came up to him, boorishly touched his cap, +and then, taking a cardboard box out of his pocket, opened it with +infinite caution, something like a tremor of emotion passing over his +gnarled countenance. + +The rector's eyes glistened. + +'Hullo! I say, Irwin, where in the name of fortune did you get that? You +lucky fellow! Come in, and let's look it out!' + +And the two plunged back into the Club together, leaving Langham to the +philosophic and patient contemplation of the village green, its geese, +its donkeys, and its surrounding fringe of houses. He felt that quite +indisputably life would have been better worth living if, like Robert, +he could have taken a passionate interest in rare moths or common +ploughboys; but Nature having denied him the possibility, there was +small use in grumbling. + +Presently the two naturalists came out again, and the boy went off, +bearing his treasure with him. + +'Lucky dog!' said Robert, turning his friend into a country road leading +out of the village, 'he's found one of the rarest moths of the district. +Such a hero he'll be in the Club to-morrow night. It's extraordinary +what a rational interest has done for that fellow! I nearly fought him +in public last winter.' + +And he turned to his friend with a laugh, and yet with a little quick +look of feeling in the gray eyes. + +'Magnificent, but not war,' said Langham drily. 'I wouldn't have given +much for your chances against those shoulders.' + +'Oh, I don't know. I should have had a little science on my side, which +counts for a great deal. We turned him out of the Club for brutality +towards the old grandmother he lives with--turned him out in public. +Such a scene! I shall never forget the boy's face. It was like a corpse, +and the eyes burning out of it. He made for me, but the others closed up +round, and we got him put out.' + +'Hard lines on the grandmother,' remarked Langham. + +'She thought so--poor old thing! She left her cottage that night, +thinking he would murder her, and went to a friend. At the end of a week +he came into the friend's house, where she was alone in bed. She cowered +under the bedclothes, she told me, expecting him to strike her. Instead +of which he threw his wages down beside her and gruffly invited her to +come home. "He wouldn't do her no mischief." Everybody dissuaded her, +but the plucky old thing went. A week or two afterwards she sent for me +and I found her crying. She was sure the lad was ill, he spoke to nobody +at his work. "Lord, sir!" she said, "it do remind me, when he sits +glowering at nights, of those folks in the Bible, when the devils inside +'em kep' a-tearing 'em. But he's like a new-born babe to me, sir--never +does me no 'arm. And it do go to my heart, sir, to see how poorly he do +take his vittles!" So I made tracks for that lad,' said Robert, his eyes +kindling, his whole frame dilating. 'I found him in the fields one +morning. I have seldom lived through so much in half an hour. In the +evening I walked him up to the Club, and we re-admitted him, and since +then the boy has been like one clothed and in his right mind. If there +is any trouble in the Club I set him on, and he generally puts it right. +And when I was laid up with a chill in the spring, and the poor fellow +came trudging up every night after his work to ask for me--well, never +mind! but it gives one a good glow at one's heart to think about it.' + +The speaker threw back his head impulsively, as though defying his own +feeling. Langham looked at him curiously. The pastoral temper was a +novelty to him, and the strong development of it in the undergraduate of +his Oxford recollections had its interest. + +'A quarter to six,' said Robert, as on their return from their walk they +were descending a low-wooded hill above the village, and the church +clock rang out. 'I must hurry, or I shall be late for my story-telling.' + +'Story-telling!' said Langham, with a half-exasperated shrug. 'What +next? You clergy are too inventive by half!' + +Robert laughed a trifle bitterly. + +'I can't congratulate you on your epithets,' he said, thrusting his +hands far into his pockets. 'Good heavens, if we _were_--if we were +inventive as a body, the Church wouldn't be where she is in the rural +districts! My story-telling is the simplest thing in the world. I began +it in the winter with the object of somehow or other getting at the +_imagination_ of these rustics. Force them for only half an hour to +live some one else's life--it is the one thing worth doing with them. +That's what I have been aiming at. I _told_ my stories all the +winter--Shakespeare, Don Quixote, Dumas--Heaven knows what! And on the +whole it answers best. But now we are reading _The Talisman_. Come and +inspect us, unless you're a purist about your Scott! None other of the +immortals have such _longueurs_ as he, and we cut him freely.' + +'By all means,' said Langham; 'lead on.' And he followed his companion +without repugnance. After all, there was something contagious in so much +youth and hopefulness. + +The story-telling was held in the Institute. + +A group of men and boys were hanging round the door when they reached +it. The two friends made their way through, greeted in the dumb friendly +English fashion on all sides, and Langham found himself in a room +half-filled with boys and youths, a few grown men, who had just put +their pipes out, lounging at the back. + +Langham not only endured, but enjoyed the first part of the hour that +followed. Robert was an admirable reader, as most enthusiastic +imaginative people are. He was a master of all those arts of look and +gesture which make a spoken story telling and dramatic, and Langham +marvelled with what energy, after his hard day's work and with another +service before him, he was able to throw himself into such a _hors +d'oeuvre_ as this. He was reading to-night one of the most perfect +scenes that even the Wizard of the North has ever conjured; the scene in +the tent of Richard Lion-Heart, when the disguised slave saves the life +of the king, and Richard first suspects his identity. As he read on, his +arms resting on the high desk in front of him, and his eyes, full of +infectious enjoyment, travelling from the book to his audience, +surrounded by human beings whose confidence he had won, and whose lives +he was brightening from day to day, he seemed to Langham the very type +and model of a man who had found his _metier_, found his niche in the +world, and the best means of filling it. If to attain to an 'adequate +and masterly expression of one's self' be the aim of life, Robert was +fast achieving it. This parish of twelve hundred souls gave him now all +the scope he asked. It was evident that he felt his work to be rather +above than below his deserts. He was content--more than content--to +spend ability which would have distinguished him in public life, or +carried him far to the front in literature, on the civilising of a few +hundred of England's rural poor. The future might bring him worldly +success--Langham thought it must and would. Clergymen of Robert's stamp +are rare among us. But if so, it would be in response to no conscious +effort of his. Here, in the country living he had so long dreaded and +put from him, lest it should tax his young energies too lightly, he was +happy--deeply, abundantly happy, at peace with God, at one with man. + +_Happy!_ Langham, sitting at the outer corner of one of the benches, by +the open door, gradually ceased to listen, started on other lines of +thought by this realisation, warm, stimulating, provocative, of another +man's happiness. + +Outside, the shadows lengthened across the green; groups of distant +children or animals passed in and out of the golden light-spaces; the +patches of heather left here and there glowed as the sunset touched +them. Every now and then his eye travelled vaguely past a cottage +garden, gay with the pinks and carmines of the phloxes, into the cool +browns and bluish-grays of the raftered room beyond; babies toddled +across the road, with stooping mothers in their train; the whole air and +scene seemed to be suffused with suggestions of the pathetic +expansiveness and helplessness of human existence, which, generation +after generation, is still so vulnerable, so confiding, so eager. Life +after life flowers out from the darkness and sinks back into it again. +And in the interval what agony, what disillusion! All the apparatus of a +universe that men may know what it is to hope and fail, to win and lose! +_Happy!_--in this world, 'where men sit and hear each other groan.' His +friend's confidence only made Langham as melancholy as Job. + +What was it based on? In the first place, on Christianity--'on the +passionate acceptance of an exquisite fairy tale,' said the dreaming +spectator to himself, 'which at the first honest challenge of the +critical sense withers in our grasp! That challenge Elsmere has never +given it, and in all probability never will. No! A man sees none the +straighter for having a wife he adores, and a profession that suits him, +between him and unpleasant facts!' + + * * * * * + +In the evening Langham, with the usual reaction of his afternoon self +against his morning self, felt that wild horses should not take him to +Church again, and, with a longing for something purely mundane, he +stayed at home with a volume of Montaigne, while apparently all the rest +of the household went to evening service. + +After a warm day the evening had turned cold and stormy; the west was +streaked with jagged strips of angry cloud, the wind was rising in the +trees, and the temperature had suddenly fallen so much that when Langham +shut himself up in Robert's study he did what he had been admonished to +do in case of need, set a light to the fire, which blazed out merrily +into the darkening room. Then he drew the curtains and threw himself +down into Robert's chair with a sigh of Sybaritic satisfaction. 'Good! +Now for something that takes the world less naively,' he said to +himself; 'this house is too virtuous for anything.' + +He opened his Montaigne and read on very happily for half an hour. The +house seemed entirely deserted. + +'All the servants gone too!' he said presently, looking up and +listening. 'Anybody who wants the spoons needn't trouble about me. I +don't leave this fire.' + +And he plunged back again into his book. At last there was a sound of +the swing door which separated Robert's passage from the front hall +opening and shutting. Steps came quickly towards the study, the handle +was turned, and there on the threshold stood Rose. + +He turned quickly round in his chair with a look of astonishment. She +also started as she saw him. + +'I did not know any one was in,' she said awkwardly, the colour +spreading over her face. 'I came to look for a book.' + +She made a delicious picture as she stood framed in the darkness of the +doorway; her long dress caught up round her in one hand, the other +resting on the handle. A gust of some delicate perfume seemed to enter +the room with her, and a thrill of pleasure passed through Langham's +senses. + +'Can I find anything for you?' he said, springing up. + +She hesitated a moment, then apparently made up her mind that it would +be foolish to retreat, and, coming forward, she said, with an accent as +coldly polite as she could make it,-- + +'Pray don't disturb yourself. I know exactly where to find it.' + +She went up to the shelves where Robert kept his novels, and began +running her fingers over the books, with slightly knitted brows and a +mouth severely shut. Langham, still standing, watched her and presently +stepped forward. + +'You can't reach those upper shelves,' he said; 'please let me.' + +He was already beside her, and she gave way. + +'I want _Charles Auchester_,' she said, still forbiddingly. 'It ought to +be there.' + +'Oh, that queer musical novel--I know it quite well. No sign of it +here,' and he ran over the shelves with the practised eye of one +accustomed to deal with books. + +'Robert must have lent it,' said Rose, with a little sigh. 'Never mind, +please. It doesn't matter,' and she was already moving away. + +'Try some other instead,' he said, smiling, his arm still upstretched. +'Robert has no lack of choice.' His manner had an animation and ease +usually quite foreign to it. Rose stopped, and her lips relaxed a +little. + +'He is very nearly as bad as the novel-reading bishop, who was reduced +at last to stealing the servant's _Family Herald_ out of the kitchen +cupboard,' she said, a smile dawning. + +Langham laughed. + +'Has he such an episcopal appetite for them? That accounts for the fact +that when he and I begin to talk novels I am always nowhere.' + +'I shouldn't have supposed you ever read them,' said Rose, obeying an +irresistible impulse, and biting her lip the moment afterwards. + +'Do you think that we poor people at Oxford are always condemned to +works on the "enclitic [Greek: de]"?' he asked, his fine eyes lit up +with gaiety, and his head, of which the Greek outlines were ordinarily +so much disguised by his stoop and hesitating look, thrown back against +the books behind him. + +Natures like Langham's, in which the nerves are never normal, have their +moments of felicity, balancing their weeks of timidity and depression. +After his melancholy of the last two days the tide of reaction had been +mounting within him, and the sight of Rose had carried it to its height. + +She gave a little involuntary stare of astonishment. What had happened +to Robert's silent and finicking friend? + +'I know nothing of Oxford,' she said a little primly, in answer to his +question. 'I never was there--but I never was anywhere, I have seen +nothing,' she added hastily, and, as Langham thought, bitterly. + +'Except London, and the great world, and Madame Desforets!' he answered, +laughing. 'Is that so little?' + +She flashed a quick defiant look at him, as he mentioned Madame +Desforets, but his look was imperturbably kind and gay. She could not +help softening towards him. What magic had passed over him? + +'Do you know,' said Langham, moving, 'that you are standing in a +draught, and that it has turned extremely cold?' + +For she had left the passage-door wide open behind her, and as the +window was partially open the curtains were swaying hither and thither, +and her muslin dress was being blown in coils round her feet. + +'So it has,' said Rose, shivering. 'I don't envy the Church people. You +haven't found me a book, Mr. Langham?' + +'I will find you one in a minute, if you will come and read it by the +fire,' he said, with his hand on the door. + +She glanced at the fire and at him, irresolute. His breath quickened. +She too had passed into another phase. Was it the natural effect of +night, of solitude, of sex? At any rate, she sank softly into the +armchair opposite to that in which he had been sitting. + +'Find me an exciting one, please.' + +Langham shut the door securely, and went back to the bookcase, his hand +trembling a little as it passed along the books. He found _Villette_ and +offered it to her. She took it, opened it, and appeared deep in it at +once. He took the hint and went back to his Montaigne. + +The fire crackled cheerfully, the wind outside made every now and then a +sudden gusty onslaught on their silence, dying away again as abruptly as +it had risen. Rose turned the pages of her book, sitting a little +stiffly in her long chair, and Langham gradually began to find Montaigne +impossible to read. He became instead more and more alive to every +detail of the situation into which he had fallen. At last seeing, or +imagining, that the fire wanted attending to, he bent forward and +thrust the poker into it. A burning coal fell on the hearth, and Rose +hastily withdrew her foot from the fender and looked up. + +'I am so sorry!' he interjected. 'Coals never do what you want them to +do. Are you very much interested in _Villette_?' + +'Deeply,' said Rose, letting the book, however, drop on her lap. She +laid back her head with a little sigh, which she did her best to check, +half way through. What ailed her to-night? She seemed wearied; for the +moment there was no fight in her with anybody. Her music, her beauty, +her mutinous mocking gaiety--these things had all worked on the man +beside her; but this new softness, this touch of childish fatigue, was +adorable. + +'Charlotte Bronte wrote it out of her Brussels experience, didn't she?' +she resumed languidly. 'How sorry she must have been to come back to +that dull home and that awful brother after such a break!' + +'There were reasons more than one that must have made her sorry to come +back,' said Langham reflectively. 'But how she pined for her wilds all +through! I am afraid you don't find your wilds as interesting as she +found hers?' + +His question and his smile startled her. + +Her first impulse was to take up her book again, as a hint to him that +her likings were no concern of his. But something checked it, probably +the new brilliancy of that look of his, which had suddenly grown so +personal, so manly. Instead. _Villette_ slid a little farther from her +hand, and her pretty head still lay lightly back against the cushion. + +'No, I don't find my wilds interesting at all,' she said forlornly. + +'You are not fond of the people as your sister is?' + +'Fond of them?' cried Rose hastily. 'I should think not; and what is +more, they don't like me. It is quite intolerable since Catherine left. +I have so much more to do with them. My other sister and I have to do +all her work. It is dreadful to have to work after somebody who has a +genius for doing just what you do worst.' + +The young girl's hands fell across one another with a little impatient +gesture. Langham had a movement of the most delightful compassion +towards the petulant, childish creature. It was as though their relative +positions had been in some mysterious way reversed. During their two +days together she had been the superior, and he had felt himself at the +mercy of her scornful sharp-eyed youth. Now, he knew not how or why, +Fate seemed to have restored to him something of the man's natural +advantage, combined, for once, with the impulse to use it. + +'Your sister, I suppose, has been always happy in charity?' he said. + +'Oh dear, yes,' said Rose irritably; 'anything that has two legs and is +ill, that is all Catherine wants to make her happy.' + +'And _you_ want something quite different, something more exciting?' he +asked, his diplomatic tone showing that he felt he dared something in +thus pressing her, but dared it at least with his wits about him. Rose +met his look irresolutely, a little tremor of self-consciousness +creeping over her. + +'Yes, I want something different,' she said in a low voice and paused; +then, raising herself energetically, she clasped her hands round her +knees. 'But it is not idleness I want. I want to work, but at things I +was born for; I _can't_ have patience with old women, but I could slave +all day and all night to play the violin.' + +'You want to give yourself up to study then, and live with musicians?' +he said quietly. + +She shrugged her shoulders by way of answer, and began nervously to play +with her rings. + +That under-self which was the work and the heritage of her father in +her, and which, beneath all the wilfulnesses and defiances of the other +self, held its own moral debates in its own way, well out of Catherine's +sight generally, began to emerge, wooed into the light by his friendly +gentleness. + +'But it is all so difficult, you see,' she said despairingly. 'Papa +thought it wicked to care about anything except religion. If he had +lived, of course I should never have been allowed to study music. It has +been all mutiny so far, every bit of it, whatever I have been able to +do.' + +'He would have changed with the times,' said Langham. + +'I know he would,' cried Rose. 'I have told Catherine so a hundred +times. People--good people--think quite differently about art now, don't +they, Mr. Langham?' + +She spoke with perfect _naivete_. He saw more and more of the child in +her, in spite of that one striking development of her art. + +'They call it the handmaid of religion,' he answered, smiling. + +Rose made a little face. + +'I shouldn't,' she said, with frank brevity. 'But then there's something +else. You know where we live--at the very ends of the earth, seven miles +from a station, in the very loneliest valley of all Westmoreland. What's +to be done with a fiddle in such a place? Of course, ever since papa +died I've just been plotting and planning to get away. But there's the +difficulty,' and she crossed one white finger over another as she laid +out her case. 'That house where we live has been lived in by Leyburns +ever since--the Flood! Horrid set they were, I know, because I can't +ever make mamma or even Catherine talk about them. But still, when papa +retired, he came back and bought the old place from his brother. Such a +dreadful, dreadful mistake!' cried the child, letting her hands fall +over her knee. + +'Had he been so happy there?' + +'Happy!'--and Rose's lip curled. 'His brothers used to kick and cuff +him, his father was awfully unkind to him, he never had a day's peace +till he went to school, and after he went to school he never came back +for years and years and years, till Catherine was fifteen. What _could_ +have made him so fond of it?' + +And again looking despondently into the fire she pondered that far-off +perversity of her father's. + +'Blood has strange magnetisms,' said Langham, seized as he spoke by the +pensive prettiness of the bent head and neck, 'and they show themselves +in the oddest ways.' + +'Then I wish they wouldn't,' she said irritably. 'But that isn't all. He +went there, not only because he loved that place, but because he hated +other places. I think he must have thought'--and her voice dropped--'he +wasn't going to live long--he wasn't well when he gave up the +school--and then we could grow up there safe, without any chance of +getting into mischief. Catherine says he thought the world was getting +very wicked and dangerous and irreligious, and that it comforted him to +know that we should be out of it.' + +Then she broke off suddenly. + +'Do you know,' she went on wistfully, raising her beautiful eyes to her +companion, 'after all, he gave me my first violin?' + +Langham smiled. + +'I like that little inconsequence,' he said. + +'Then of course I took to it, like a duck to water, and it began to +scare him that I loved it so much. He and Catherine only loved religion, +and us, and the poor. So he always took it away on Sundays. Then I hated +Sundays, and would never be good on them. One Sunday I cried myself +nearly into a fit on the dining-room floor because I mightn't have it. +Then he came in, and he took me up, and he tied a Scotch plaid round his +neck, and he put me into it, and carried me away right up on to the +hills, and he talked to me like an angel. He asked me not to make him +sad before God that he had given me that violin; so I never screamed +again--on Sundays! + +Her companion's eyes were not quite as clear as before. + +'Poor little naughty child' he said, bending over to her. 'I think your +father must have been a man to be loved.' + +She looked at him, very near to weeping, her face all working with a +soft remorse. + +'Oh, so he was--so he was! If he had been hard and ugly to us, why, it +would have been much easier for _me_; but he was so good! And there was +Catherine just like him, always preaching to us what he wished. You see +what a chain it's been--what a weight! And as I must struggle--_must_, +because I was I--to get back into the world on the other side of the +mountains, and do what all the dear wicked people there were doing, why, +I have been a criminal all my life! And _that_ isn't exhilarating +always.' + +And she raised her arm and let it fall beside her with the quick +over-tragic emotion of nineteen. + +'I wish your father could have heard you play as I heard you play +yesterday,' he said gently. + +She started. + +'_Did_ you hear me--that Wagner?' + +He nodded, smiling. She still looked at him, her lips slightly open. + +'Do you want to know what I thought? I have heard much music, you know.' + +He laughed into her eyes, as much as to say, 'I am not quite the mummy +you thought me, after all!' And she coloured slightly. + +'I have heard every violinist of any fame in Europe play, and play +often; and it seemed to me that with time--and work--you might play as +well as any of them.' + +The slight flush became a glow that spread from brow to chin. Then she +gave a long breath and turned away, her face resting on her hand. + +'And I can't help thinking,' he went on, marvelling inwardly at his own +role of mentor, and his strange enjoyment of it, 'that if your father +had lived till now, and had gone with the times a little, as he must +have gone, he would have learnt to take pleasure in your pleasure, and +to fit your gift somehow into his scheme of things.' + +'Catherine hasn't moved with the times,' said Rose dolefully. + +Langham was silent. _Gaucherie_ seized him again when it became a +question of discussing Mrs. Elsmere, his own view was so inconveniently +emphatic. + +'And you think,' she went on, 'you _really_ think, without being too +ungrateful to papa, and too unkind to the old Leyburn ghosts'--and a +little laugh danced through the vibrating voice--'I might try and get +them to give up Burwood--I might struggle to have my way? I shall, of +course I shall! I never was a meek martyr, and never shall be. But one +can't help having qualms, though one doesn't tell them to one's sisters +and cousins and aunts. And sometimes'--she turned her chin round on her +hand and looked at him with a delicious shy impulsiveness--'sometimes a +stranger sees clearer. Do _you_ think me a monster, as Catherine does?' + +Even as she spoke her own words startled her--the confidence, the +abandonment of them. But she held to them bravely; only her eyelids +quivered. She had absurdly misjudged this man, and there was a warm +penitence in her heart. How kind he had been, how sympathetic! + +He rose with her last words, and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, +looking down upon her gravely, with the air, as it seemed to her, of her +friend, her confessor. Her white childish brow, the little curls of +bright hair upon her temples, her parted lips, the pretty folds of the +muslin dress, the little foot on the fender--every detail of the +picture impressed itself once for all. Langham will carry it with him to +his grave. + +'Tell me,' she said again, smiling divinely, as though to encourage +him--'tell me quite frankly, down to the bottom, what you think?' + +The harsh noise of an opening door in the distance, and a gust of wind +sweeping through the house, voices and steps approaching. Rose sprang +up, and, for the first time during all the latter part of their +conversation, felt a sharp sense of embarrassment. + +'How early you are, Robert!' she exclaimed, as the study door opened, +and Robert's wind-blown head and tall form, wrapped in an Inverness +cape, appeared on the threshold. 'Is Catherine tired?' + +'Rather,' said Robert, the slightest gleam of surprise betraying itself +on his face. 'She has gone to bed, and told me to ask you to come and +say good-night to her.' + +'You got my message about not coming from old Martha?' asked Rose. 'I +met her on the common.' + +'Yes, she gave it us at the church door.' He went out again into the +passage to hang up his greatcoat. She followed, longing to tell him that +it was pure accident that took her to the study, but she could not find +words in which to do it, and could only say good-night a little +abruptly. + +'How tempting that fire looks!' said Robert, re-entering the study. +'Were you very cold, Langham, before you lit it?' + +'Very,' said Langham, smiling, his arm behind his head, his eyes fixed +on the blaze; 'but I have been delightfully warm and happy since.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Catherine stopped beside the drawing-room window with a start, caught by +something she saw outside. + +It was nothing, however, but the figures of Rose and Langham strolling +round the garden. A bystander would have been puzzled by the sudden +knitting of Catherine's brows over it. + +Rose held a red parasol, which gleamed against the trees; Dandie leapt +about her, but she was too busy talking to take much notice of him. +Talking, chattering, to that cold cynic of a man, for whom only +yesterday she had scarcely had a civil word! Catherine felt herself a +prey to all sorts of vague unreasonable alarms. + +Robert had said to her the night before, with an odd look: 'Wifie, when +I came in I found Langham and Rose had been spending the evening +together in the study. And I don't know when I have seen Langham so +brilliant or so alive as in our smoking talk just now!' + +Catherine had laughed him to scorn; but, all the same, she had been a +little longer going to sleep than usual. She felt herself almost as much +as ever the guardian of her sisters, and the old sensitive nerve was set +quivering. And now there could be no question about it--Rose had changed +her ground towards Mr. Langham altogether. Her manner at breakfast was +evidence enough of it. + +Catherine's self-torturing mind leapt on for an instant to all sorts of +horrors. _That_ man!--and she and Robert responsible to her mother and +her dead father! Never! Then she scolded herself back to common sense. +Rose and he had discovered a common subject in music and musicians. That +would be quite enough to account for the new-born friendship on Rose's +part. And in five more days, the limit of Langham's stay, nothing very +dreadful _could_ happen, argued the reserved Catherine. + +But she was uneasy, and after a bit, as that _tete-a-tete_ in the garden +still went on, she could not, for the life of her, help interfering. She +strolled out to meet them with some woollen stuff hanging over her arm, +and made a plaintive and smiling appeal to Rose to come and help her +with some preparations for a mothers' meeting to be held that afternoon. +Rose, who was supposed by the family to be 'taking care' of her sister +at a critical time, had a moment's prick of conscience, and went off +with a good grace. Langham felt vaguely that he owed Mrs. Elsmere +another grudge, but he resigned himself and took out a cigarette, +wherewith to console himself for the loss of his companion. + +Presently, as he stood for a moment turning over some new books on the +drawing-room table, Rose came in. She held an armful of blue serge, and, +going up to a table in the window, she took from it a little work-case, +and was about to vanish again when Langham went up to her. + +'You look intolerably busy,' he said to her, discontentedly. + +'Six dresses, ten cloaks, eight petticoats to cut out by luncheon time,' +she answered demurely, with a countenance of most Dorcas-like +seriousness, 'and if I spoil them I shall have to pay for the stuff!' + +He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her, smiling, still master of +himself and of his words. + +'And no music--none at all? Perhaps you don't know that I too can +accompany?' + +'You play!' she exclaimed, incredulous. + +'Try me.' + +The light of his fine black eyes seemed to encompass her. She moved +backward a little, shaking her head. 'Not this morning,' she said. 'Oh +dear, no, not this morning! I am afraid you don't know anything about +tacking or fixing, or the abominable time they take. Well, it could +hardly be expected. There is nothing in the world'--and she shook her +serge vindictively--'that I hate so much!' + +'And not this afternoon, for Robert and I go fishing. But this evening?' +he said, detaining her. + +She nodded lightly, dropped her lovely eyes with a sudden embarrassment, +and went away with lightning quickness. + +A minute or two later Elsmere laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. +'Come and see the Hall, old fellow. It will be our last chance, for the +squire and his sister come back this afternoon. I must parochialise a +bit afterwards, but you shan't be much victimised.' + +Langham submitted, and they sallied forth. It was a soft rainy morning, +one of the first heralds of autumn. Gray mists were drifting silently +across the woods and the wide stubbles of the now shaven cornfield, +where white lines of reapers were at work, as the morning cleared, +making and stacking the sheaves. After a stormy night the garden was +strewn with _debris_, and here and there noiseless prophetic showers of +leaves were dropping on the lawn. + +Elsmere took his guest along a bit of common, where great black junipers +stood up like magnates in council above the motley undergrowth of fern +and heather, and then they turned into the park. A great stretch of +dimpled land it was, falling softly towards the south and west, bounded +by a shining twisted river, and commanding from all its highest points a +heathery world of distance, now turned a stormy purple under the +drooping fringes of the rain clouds. They walked downwards from the +moment of entering it, till at last, when they reached a wooded plateau +about a hundred feet above the river, the house itself came suddenly +into view. + +That was a house of houses! The large main building, as distinguished +from the lower stone portions to the north which represented a fragment +of the older Elizabethan house, had been in its day the crown and boast +of Jacobean house-architecture. It was fretted and jewelled with +Renaissance terra-cotta work from end to end; each gable had its lace +work, each window its carved setting. And yet the lines of the whole +were so noble, genius had hit the general proportions so finely, that no +effect of stateliness or grandeur had been missed through all the +accumulation of ornament. Majestic relic of a vanished England, the +house rose amid the August woods rich in every beauty that site, and +wealth, and centuries could give to it. The river ran about it as though +it loved it. The cedars which had kept it company for well-nigh two +centuries gathered proudly round it; the deer grouped themselves in the +park beneath it, as though they were conscious elements in a great whole +of loveliness. + +The two friends were admitted by a housemaid who happened to be busy in +the hall, and whose red cheeks and general breathlessness bore witness +to the energy of the storm of preparation now sweeping through the +house. + +The famous hall to which Elsmere at once drew Langham's attention was, +however, in no way remarkable for size or height. It told comparatively +little of seignorial dignity, but it was as though generation after +generation had employed upon its perfecting the craft of its most +delicate fingers, the love of its most fanciful and ingenious spirits. +Overhead, the stucco-work ceiling, covered with stags and birds and +strange heraldic creatures unknown to science, had the deep creamy tint, +the consistency and surface of antique ivory. From the white and gilt +frieze beneath, untouched, so Robert explained, since the Jacobean days +when it was first executed, hung Renaissance tapestries which would have +made the heart's delight of any romantic child, so rich they were in +groves of marvellous trees hung with red and golden fruits, in +far-reaching palaces and rock-built citadels, in flying shepherdesses +and pursuing shepherds. Between the tapestries, again, there were +breadths of carved panelling, crowded with all things round and sweet, +with fruits and flowers and strange musical instruments, with flying +cherubs, and fair faces in laurel-wreathed medallions; while in the +middle of the wall a great oriel window broke the dim venerable surfaces +of wood and tapestry with stretches of jewelled light. Tables crowded +with antiques, with Tanagra figures or Greek vases, with Florentine +bronzes or specimens of the wilful vivacious wood-carving of +seventeenth-century Spain, stood scattered on the Persian carpets. And, +to complete the whole, the gardeners had just been at work on the +corners of the hall, and of the great window, so that the hard-won +subtleties of man's bygone handiwork, with which the splendid room was +encrusted from top to bottom, were masked and relieved here and there by +the careless easy splendour of flowers, which had but to bloom in order +to eclipse them all. + +Robert was at home in the great pile, where for many months he had gone +freely in and out on his way to the library, and the housekeeper only +met him to make an apology for her working dress, and to hand over to +him the keys of the library bookcases, with the fretful comment that +seemed to have in it the ghostly voice of generations of housemaids, 'Oh +lor', sir, they are a trouble, them books!' + +From the drawing-rooms, full of a more modern and less poetical +magnificence, where Langham turned restless and refractory, Elsmere with +a smile took his guest silently back into the hall, and opened a carved +door behind a curtain. Passing through, they found themselves in a long +passage lighted by small windows on the left-hand side. + +'This passage, please notice,' said Robert, 'leads to nothing but the +wing containing the library, or rather libraries, which is the oldest +part of the house. I always enter it with a kind of pleasing awe! +Consider these carpets, which keep out every sound, and look how +everything gets older as we go on.' + +For half-way down the passage the ceiling seemed to descend upon their +heads, the flooring became uneven and woodwork and walls showed that +they had passed from the Jacobean house into the much older Tudor +building. Presently Robert led the way up a few shallow steps, pushed +open a heavy door, also covered by curtains, and bade his companion +enter. + +They found themselves in a low immense room, running at right angles to +the passage they had just quitted. The long diamond-paned window, +filling almost half of the opposite wall, faced the door by which they +had come in; the heavy carved mantelpiece was to their right; an open +doorway on their left, closed at present by tapestry hangings, seemed to +lead into yet other rooms. + +The walls of this one were completely covered from floor to ceiling with +latticed bookcases, enclosed throughout in a frame of oak carved in +light classical relief by what appeared to be a French hand of the +sixteenth century. The chequered bindings of the books, in which the +creamy tints of vellum predominated, lined the whole surface of the wall +with a delicate sobriety of colour; over the mantelpiece, the picture of +the founder of the house--a Holbein portrait, glorious in red robes and +fur and golden necklace--seemed to gather up and give voice to all the +dignity and impressiveness of the room beneath him; while on the window +side the book-lined wall was, as it were, replaced by the wooded face of +a hill, clothed in dark lines of trimmed yews, which rose abruptly about +a hundred yards from the house and overshadowed the whole library wing. +Between the window and the hill, however, was a small old English +garden, closely hedged round with yew hedges, and blazing now with every +flower that an English August knows--with sun-flowers, tiger-lilies, and +dahlias white and red. The window was low, so that the flowers seemed to +be actually in the room, challenging the pale tints of the books, the +tawny browns and blues of the Persian carpet, and the scarlet splendours +of the courtier over the mantelpiece. The room was lit up besides by a +few gleaming casts from the antique, by the 'Diane Chasseresse' of the +Louvre, by the Hermes of Praxiteles smiling with immortal kindness on +the child enthroned upon his arm, and by a Donatello figure of a woman +in marble, its subtle sweet austerity contrasting with the Greek +frankness and blitheness of its companions. + +Langham was penetrated at once by the spell of this strange and +beautiful place. The fastidious instincts which had been half revolted +by the costly accumulations, the overblown splendours of the +drawing-room, were abundantly satisfied here. + +'So it was here,' he said, looking round him, 'that that man wrote _The +Idols of the Market-place_?' + +'I imagine so,' said Robert; 'if so, he might well have felt a little +more charity towards the human race in writing it. The race cannot be +said to have treated him badly on the whole. But now look, Langham, look +at these books--the most precious things are here.' + +And he turned the key of a particular section of the wall, which was +not only latticed but glazed. + +'Here is _A Mirror for Magistrates_. Look at the title-page; you will +find Gabriel Harvey's name on it. Here is a first edition of _Astrophel +and Stella_, another of the Arcadia. They may very well be presentation +copies, for the Wendover of that day is known to have been a wit and a +writer. Imagine finding them _in situ_ like this in the same room, +perhaps on the same shelves, as at the beginning! The other rooms on +this floor have been annexed since, but this room was always a library.' + +Langham took the volumes reverently from Robert's hands into his own, +the scholar's passion hot within him. That glazed case was indeed a +storehouse of treasures. Ben Jonson's _Underwoods_ with his own +corrections; a presentation copy of Andrew Marvell's _Poems_, with +autograph notes; manuscript volumes of letters, containing almost every +famous name known to English literature in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries, the literary cream, in fact, of all the vast +collection which filled the muniment room upstairs; books which had +belonged to Addison, to Sir William Temple, to Swift, to Horace Walpole; +the first four folios of Shakespeare, all perfect, and most of the +quartos--everything that the heart of the English collector could most +desire was there. And the charm of it was that only a small proportion +of these precious things represented conscious and deliberate +acquisition. The great majority of them had, as it were, drifted thither +one by one, carried there by the tide of English letters as to a warm +and natural resting-place. + +But Robert grew impatient, and hurried on his guest to other things--to +the shelves of French rarities, ranging from Du Bellay's _Visions_, with +his autograph, down to the copy of _Les Memoires d'Outre-Tombe_ +presented by Chateaubriand to Madame Recamier, or to a dainty manuscript +volume in the fine writing of Lamartine. + +'These,' Robert explained, 'were collected, I believe, by the squire's +father. He was not in the least literary, so they say, but it had always +been a point of honour to carry on the library, and as he had learnt +French well in his youth he bought French things, taking advice, but +without knowing much about them, I imagine. It was in the room +overhead,' said Robert, laying down the book he held, and speaking in a +lower key, 'so the old doctor of the house told me a few weeks ago, that +the same poor soul put an end to himself twenty years ago.' + +'What in the name of fortune did he do that for?' + +'Mania,' said Robert quietly. + +'Whew!' said the other, lifting his eyebrows. 'Is that the skeleton in +this very magnificent cupboard?' + +'It has been the Wendover scourge from the beginning, so I hear. Every +one about here of course explains this man's eccentricities by the +family history. But I don't know,' said Robert, his lip hardening, 'it +may be extremely convenient sometimes to have a tradition of the kind. A +man who knew how to work it might very well enjoy all the advantages of +sanity and the privileges of insanity at the same time. The poor old +doctor I was telling you of--old Meyrick--who has known the squire since +his boyhood, and has a dog-like attachment to him, is always hinting at +mysterious excuses. Whenever I let out to him, as I do sometimes, as to +the state of the property, he talks of "inherited melancholy," "rash +judgments," and so forth. I like the good old soul, but I don't believe +much of it. A man who is sane enough to make a great name for himself in +letters is sane enough to provide his estate with a decent agent.' + +'It doesn't follow,' said Langham, who was, however, so deep in a +collection of Spanish romances and chronicles that the squire's mental +history did not seem to make much impression upon him. 'Most men of +letters are mad and I should be inclined,' he added, with a sudden and +fretful emphasis, 'to argue much worse things for the sanity of your +squire, Elsmere, from the fact that this room is undoubtedly allowed to +get damp sometimes, than from any of those absurd parochial tests of +yours.' + +And he held up a couple of priceless books, of which the Spanish +sheepskin bindings showed traces here and there of moisture. + +'It is no use, I know, expecting you to preserve a moral sense when you +get among books,' said Robert with a shrug. 'I will reserve my remarks +on that subject. But you must really tear yourself away from this room, +Langham, if you want to see the rest of the squire's quarters. Here you +have what we may call the ornamental sensational part of the library, +that part of it which would make a stir at Sotheby's; the working parts +are all to come.' + +Langham reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged away. Robert held back +the hangings over the doorway leading into the rest of the wing, and, +passing through, they found themselves in a continuation of the library +totally different in character from the magnificent room they had just +left. The walls were no longer latticed and carved; they were closely +packed, in the most business-like way, with books which represented the +squire's own collection, and were in fact a chart of his own +intellectual history. + +'This is how I interpret this room,' said Robert, looking round it. +'Here are the books he collected at Oxford in the Tractarian Movement +and afterwards. Look here,' and he pulled out a volume of St. Basil. + +Langham looked, and saw on the title-page a note in faded characters: +'_Given to me by Newman at Oxford, in 1845_.' + +'Ah, of course, he was one of them in '45; he must have left them very +soon after,' said Langham reflectively. + +Robert nodded. 'But look at them! There are the Tracts, all the Fathers, +all the Councils, and masses, as you see, of Anglican theology. Now look +at the next case, nothing but eighteenth century!' + +'I see,--from the Fathers to the Philosophers, from Hooker to Hume. How +history repeats itself in the individual!' + +'And there again,' said Robert, pointing to the other side of the room, +'are the results of his life as a German student.' + +'Germany--ah, I remember! How long was he there?' + +'Ten years, at Berlin and Heidelberg. According to old Meyrick, he +buried his last chance of living like other men at Berlin. His years of +extravagant labour there have left marks upon him physically that can +never be effaced. But that bookcase fascinates me. Half the great names +of modern thought are in those books.' + +And so they were. The first Langham opened had a Latin dedication in a +quavering old man's hand, 'Amico et discipulo meo,' signed 'Fredericus +Gulielmus Schelling.' The next bore the autograph of Alexander von +Humboldt, the next that of Boeckh, the famous classic, and so on. Close +by was Niebuhr's History, in the title-page of which a few lines in the +historian's handwriting bore witness to much 'pleasant discourse between +the writer and Roger Wendover, at Bonn, in the summer of 1847.' Judging +from other shelves farther down, he must also have spent some time, +perhaps an academic year, at Tuebingen, for here were most of the early +editions of the _Leben Jesu_, with some corrections from Strauss's hand, +and similar records of Baur, Ewald, and other members or opponents of +the Tuebingen school. And so on, through the whole bookcase. Something of +everything was there--Philosophy, Theology, History, Philology. The +collection was a medley, and made almost a spot of disorder in the +exquisite neatness and system of the vast gathering of which it formed +part. Its bond of union was simply that it represented the forces of an +epoch, the thoughts, the men, the occupations which had absorbed the +energies of ten golden years. Every book seemed to be full of paper +marks; almost every title-page was covered with minute writing, which, +when examined, proved to contain a record of lectures, or conversations +with the author of the volume, sometimes a string of anecdotes or a +short biography, rapidly sketched out of the fulness of personal +knowledge, and often seasoned with a subtle causticity and wit. A +history of modern thinking Germany, of that 'unextinguished hearth' +whence the mind of Europe has been kindled for three generations, might +almost have been evolved from that bookcase and its contents alone. + +Langham, as he stood peering among the ugly, vilely-printed German +volumes, felt suddenly a kind of magnetic influence creeping over him. +The room seemed instinct with a harsh commanding presence. The history +of a mind and soul was written upon the face of it; every shelf, as it +were, was an autobiographical fragment, an 'Apologia pro Vita Mea.' He +drew away from the books at last with the uneasy feeling of one who +surprises a confidence, and looked for Robert. Robert was at the end of +the room, a couple of volumes under his arm, another, which he was +reading, in his hand. + +'This is _my_ corner,' he said, smiling and flushing a little, as his +friend moved up to him. 'Perhaps you don't know that I too am engaged +upon a great work.' + +'A great work--you?' + +Langham looked at his companion as though to find out whether his remark +was meant seriously or whether he might venture to be cynical. Elsmere +writing! Why should everybody write books? It was absurd! The scholar +who knows what toll scholarship takes of life is always apt to resent +the intrusion of the man of action into his domains. It looks to him +like a kind of ridiculous assumption that any one _d'un coeur leger_ +can do what has cost him his heart's blood. + +Robert understood something of the meaning of his tone, and replied +almost apologetically; he was always singularly modest about himself on +the intellectual side. + +'Well, Grey is responsible. He gave me such a homily before I left +Oxford on the absolute necessity of keeping up with books, that I could +do nothing less than set up a "subject" at once. "Half the day," he used +to say to me, "you will be king of your world; the other half be the +slave of something which will take you out of your world into the +general world;" and then he would quote to me that saying he was always +bringing into lectures--I forget whose it is--"_The decisive events of +the world take place in the intellect._ It is the mission of books that +they help one to remember it." Altogether it was striking, coming from +one who has always had such a tremendous respect for practical life and +work, and I was much impressed by it. So blame him!' + +Langham was silent. Elsmere had noticed that any allusion to Grey found +Langham less and less responsive. + +'Well, what is the "great work"?' he said at last, abruptly. + +'Historical. Oh, I should have written something without Grey; I have +always had a turn for it since I was a child. But he was clear that +history was especially valuable--especially necessary to a clergyman. I +felt he was right, entirely right. So I took my Final Schools' history +for a basis, and started on the Empire, especially the decay of the +Empire. Some day I mean to take up one of the episodes in the great +birth of Europe--the makings of France, I think, most likely. It seems +to lead farthest and tell most. I have been at work now nine months.' + +'And are just getting into it?' + +'Just about. I have got down below the surface, and am beginning to feel +the joys of digging;' and Robert threw back his head with one of his +most brilliant enthusiastic smiles. 'I have been shy about boring you +with the thing, but the fact is, I am very keen indeed; and this library +has been a godsend!' + +'So I should think.' Langham sat down on one of the carved wooden stools +placed at intervals along the bookcases and looked at his friend, his +psychological curiosity rising a little. + +'Tell me,' he said presently--'tell me what interests you +specially--what seizes you--in a subject like the making of France, for +instance?' + +'Do you really want to know?' said Robert, incredulously. + +The other nodded. Robert left his place, and began to walk up and down, +trying to answer Langham's question, and at the same time to fix in +speech a number of sentiments and impressions bred in him by the work of +the past few months. After a while Langham began to see his way. +Evidently the forces at the bottom of this new historical interest were +precisely the same forces at work in Elsmere's parish plans, in his +sermons, in his dealings with the poor and the young--forces of +imagination and sympathy. What was enchaining him to this new study was +not, to begin with, that patient love of ingenious accumulation which is +the learned temper proper, the temper, in short, of science. It was +simply a passionate sense of the human problems which underlie all the +dry and dusty detail of history and give it tone and colour, a +passionate desire to rescue something more of human life from the +drowning, submerging past, to realise for himself and others the +solidarity and continuity of mankind's long struggle from the beginning +until now. + +Langham had had much experience of Elsmere's versatility and pliancy, +but he had never realised it so much as now, while he sat listening to +the vivid, many-coloured speech getting quicker and quicker, and more +and more telling and original as Robert got more absorbed and excited by +what he had to say. He was endeavouring to describe to Langham the sort +of book he thought might be written on the rise of modern society in +Gaul, dwelling first of all on the outward spectacle of the +blood-stained Frankish world as it was, say, in the days of Gregory the +Great, on its savage kings, its fiendish women, its bishops and its +saints; and then, on the conflict of ideas going on behind all the +fierce incoherence of the Empire's decay, the struggle of Roman order +and of German freedom, of Roman luxury and of German hardness; above +all, the war of orthodoxy and heresy, with its strange political +complications. And then, discontented still, as though the heart of the +matter were still untouched, he went on, restlessly wandering the while, +with his long arms linked behind him, 'throwing out' words at an object +in his mind, trying to grasp and analyse that strange sense which haunts +the student of Rome's decline as it once overshadowed the infancy of +Europe, that sense of a slowly departing majesty, of a great presence +just withdrawn, and still incalculably potent, traceable throughout in +that humbling consciousness of Goth or Frank that they were but +'beggars hutting in a palace--the place had harboured greater men than +they!' + +'There is one thing,' Langham said presently, in his slow nonchalant +voice, when the tide of Robert's ardour ebbed for a moment, 'that +doesn't seem to have touched you yet. But you will come to it. To my +mind, it makes almost the chief interest of history. It is just this. +History depends on _testimony_. What is the nature and the value of +testimony at given times? In other words, did the man of the third +century understand, or report, or interpret facts in the same way as the +man of the sixteenth or the nineteenth? And if not, what are the +differences, and what are the deductions to be made from them, if any?' +He fixed his keen look on Robert, who was now lounging against the +books, as though his harangue had taken it out of him a little. + +'Ah, well,' said the rector, smiling, 'I am only just coming to that. As +I told you, I am only now beginning to dig for myself. Till now it has +all been work at second hand. I have been getting a general survey of +the ground as quickly as I could with the help of other men's labours. +Now I must go to work inch by inch, and find out what the ground is made +of. I won't forget your point. It is enormously important, I +grant--enormously,' he repeated reflectively. + +'I should think it is,' said Langham to himself as he rose; 'the whole +of orthodox Christianity is in it, for instance!' + +There was not much more to be seen. A little wooden staircase led from +the second library to the upper rooms, curious old rooms, which had been +annexed one by one as the squire wanted them, and in which there was +nothing at all--neither chair, nor table, nor carpet--but books only. +All the doors leading from room to room had been taken off; the old +worm-eaten boards had been roughly stained; a few old French engravings +had been hung here and there where the encroaching books left an +opening; but otherwise all was bare. There was a curious charm in the +space and air of these empty rooms, with their latticed windows opening +on to the hill; and letting in day by day the summer sun-risings or the +winter dawns, which had shone upon them for more than three centuries. + +'This is my last day of privilege,' said Robert. 'Everybody is shut out +when once he appears, from this wing, and this part of the grounds. This +was his father's room,' and the rector led the way into the last of the +series; 'and through there,' pointing to a door on the right, 'lies the +way to his own sleeping room, which is of course connected with the more +modern side of the house.' + +'So this is where that old man ventured "what Cato did and Addison +approved,"' murmured Langham, standing in the middle of the room and +looking round him. This particular room was now used as a sort of lumber +place, a receptacle for the superfluous or useless books gradually +thrown off by the great collection all around. There were innumerable +volumes in frayed or broken bindings lying on the ground. A musty smell +hung over it all; the gray light from outside, which seemed to give only +an added subtlety and charm to the other portions of the ancient +building through which they had been moving, seemed here _triste_ and +dreary. Or Langham fancied it. + +He passed the threshold again with a little sigh, and saw suddenly +before him at the end of the suite of rooms, and framed in the doorways +facing him, an engraving of a Greuze picture--a girl's face turned over +her shoulder, the hair waving about her temples, the lips parted, the +teeth gleaming, mirth and provocation and tender yielding in every line. +Langham started, and the blood rushed to his heart. It was as though +Rose herself stood there and beckoned to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +'Now, having seen our sight,' said Robert, as they left the great mass +of Murewell behind them, 'come and see our scandal. Both run by the same +proprietor, if you please. There is a hamlet down there in the +hollow'--and he pointed to a gray speck in the distance--'which deserves +a Royal Commission all to itself, which is a _disgrace_'--and his tone +warmed--'to any country, any owner, any agent! It is owned by Mr. +Wendover, and I see the pleasing prospect straight before me of +beginning my acquaintance with him by a fight over it. You will admit +that it is a little hard on a man who wants to live on good terms with +the possessor of the Murewell library to have to open relations with him +by a fierce attack on his drains and his pigsties.' + +He turned to his companion with a half-rueful spark of laughter in his +gray eyes. Langham hardly caught what he said. He was far away in +meditations of his own. + +'An attack,' he repeated vaguely; 'why an attack?' + +Robert plunged again into the great topic of which his quick mind was +evidently full. Langham tried to listen, but was conscious that his +friend's social enthusiasms bored him a great deal. And side by side +with the consciousness there slid in a little stinging reflection that +four years ago no talk of Elsmere's could have bored him. + +'What's the matter with this particular place?' he asked languidly, at +last, raising his eyes towards the group of houses now beginning to +emerge from the distance. + +An angry red mounted in Robert's cheek. + +'What isn't the matter with it? The houses, which were built on a swamp +originally, are falling into ruin; the roofs, the drains, the +accommodation per head, are all about equally scandalous. The place is +harried with illness; since I came there has been both fever and +diphtheria there. They are all crippled with rheumatism, but _that_ they +think nothing of; the English labourer takes rheumatism as quite in the +day's bargain! And as to _vice_--the vice that comes of mere endless +persecuting opportunity--I can tell you one's ideas of personal +responsibility get a good deal shaken up by a place like this! And I can +do nothing. I brought over Henslowe to see the place, and he behaved +like a brute. He scoffed at all my complaints, said that no landlord +would be such a fool as to build fresh cottages on such a site, that the +old ones must just be allowed to go to ruin; that the people might live +in them if they chose, or turn out of them if they chose. Nobody forced +them to do either; it was their own look-out.' + +'That was true,' said Langham, 'wasn't it?' + +Robert turned upon him fiercely. + +'Ah! you think it so easy for those poor creatures to leave their homes, +their working places! Some of them have been there thirty years. They +are close to the two or three farms that employ them, close to the osier +beds which give them extra earnings in the spring. If they were turned +out there is nothing nearer than Murewell, and not a single cottage to +be found there. I don't say it is a landlord's duty to provide more +cottages than are wanted; but if the labour is wanted, the labourer +should be decently housed. He is worthy of his hire, and woe to the man +who neglects or ill-treats him!' + +Langham could not help smiling, partly at the vehemence of the speech, +partly at the lack of adjustment between his friend's mood and his own. +He braced himself to take the matter more seriously, but meanwhile +Robert had caught the smile, and his angry eyes melted at once into +laughter. + +'There I am, ranting as usual,' he said penitently. 'Took you for +Henslowe, I suppose! Ah, well, never mind. I hear the Provost has +another book on the stocks.' + +So they diverged into other things, talking politics and new books, +public men and what not, till, at the end of a long and gradual descent +through wooded ground, some two miles to the north-west of the park, +they emerged from the trees beneath which they had been walking, and +found themselves on a bridge, a gray sluggish stream flowing beneath +them, and the hamlet they sought rising among the river flats on the +farther side. + +'There,' said Robert, stopping, 'we are at our journey's end. Now then, +what sort of a place of human habitation do you call _that_?' + +The bridge whereon they stood crossed the main channel of the river, +which just at that point, however, parted into several branches, and +came meandering slowly down through a little bottom or valley, filled +with osier beds, long since robbed of their year's growth of shoots. On +the other side of the river, on ground all but level with the osier beds +which interposed between them and the stream, rose a miserable group of +houses, huddled together as though their bulging walls and rotten roofs +could only maintain themselves at all by the help and support which each +wretched hovel gave to its neighbour. The mud walls were stained with +yellow patches of lichen, the palings round the little gardens were +broken and ruinous. Close beside them all was a sort of open drain or +water-course, stagnant and noisome, which dribbled into the river a +little above the bridge. Behind them rose a high gravel bank edged by +firs, and a line of oak trees against the sky. The houses stood in the +shadow of the bank looking north, and on this gray, lowering day, the +dreariness, the gloom, the squalor of the place were indescribable. + +'Well, that _is_ a God-forsaken hole!' said Langham, studying it, his +interest roused at last, rather, perhaps, by the Ruysdael-like +melancholy and picturesqueness of the scene than by its human +suggestiveness. 'I could hardly have imagined such a place existed in +southern England. It is more like a bit of Ireland.' + +'If it were Ireland it might be to somebody's interest to ferret it +out,' said Robert bitterly. 'But these poor folks are out of the world. +They may be brutalised with impunity. Oh, such a case as I had here last +autumn! A young girl of sixteen or seventeen, who would have been +healthy and happy anywhere else, stricken by the damp and the poison of +the place, dying in six weeks, of complications due to nothing in the +world but preventable cruelty and neglect! It was a sight that burnt +into my mind, once for all, what is meant by a landlord's +responsibility. I tried, of course, to move her, but neither she nor her +parents--elderly folk--had energy enough for a change. They only prayed +to be let alone. I came over the last evening of her life to give her +the communion. "Ah, sir!" said the mother to me--not bitterly--that is +the strange thing, they have so little bitterness--"if Mister 'Enslowe +would jest 'a mended that bit 'o roof of ours last winter, Bessie +needn't have laid in the wet so many nights as she did, and she coughin' +fit to break your heart, for all the things yer could put over 'er."' + +Robert paused, his strong young face, so vehemently angry a few minutes +before, tremulous with feeling. 'Ah, well,' he said at last with a long +breath, moving away from the parapet of the bridge on which he had been +leaning, 'better be oppressed than oppressor, any day! Now, then, I must +deliver my stores. There's a child here Catherine and I have been doing +our best to pull through typhoid.' + +They crossed the bridge and turned down the track leading to the hamlet. +Some planks carried them across the ditch, the main sewer of the +community, as Robert pointed out, and they made their way through the +filth surrounding one of the nearest cottages. + +A feeble elderly man, whose shaking limbs and sallow bloodless skin +make him look much older than he actually was, opened the door and +invited them to come in. Robert passed on into an inner room, conducted +thither by a woman who had been sitting working over the fire. Langham +stood irresolute; but the old man's quavering 'kindly take a chair, sir; +you've come a long way,' decided him, and he stepped in. + +Inside the hovel was miserable indeed. It belonged to that old and evil +type which the efforts of the last twenty years have done so much all +over England to sweep away: four mud walls, enclosing an oblong space +about eight yards long, divided into two unequal portions by a lath and +plaster partition, with no upper storey, a thatched roof, now entirely +out of repair, and letting in the rain in several places, and a paved +floor little better than the earth itself, so large and cavernous were +the gaps between the stones. The dismal place had no small +adornings--none of those little superfluities which, however ugly and +trivial, are still so precious in the dwellings of the poor, as showing +the existence of some instinct or passion which is not the creation of +the sheerest physical need; and Langham, as he sat down, caught the +sickening marsh smell which the Oxford man, accustomed to the odours of +damp meadows in times of ebbing flood and festering sun, knows so well. +As old Milsom began to talk to him in his weak tremulous voice, the +visitor's attention was irresistibly held by the details about him. +Fresh as he was from all the delicate sights, the harmonious colours and +delightful forms of the squire's house, they made an unusually sharp +impression on his fastidious senses. What does human life become lived +on reeking floors and under stifling roofs like these? What strange +abnormal deteriorations, physical and spiritual, must it not inevitably +undergo? Langham felt a sudden inward movement of disgust and repulsion. +'For heaven's sake, keep your superstitions!' he could have cried to the +whole human race, 'or any other narcotic that a grinding fate has left +you. What does _anything_ matter to the mass of mankind but a little +ease, a little lightening of pressure on this side or on that?' + +Meanwhile the old man went maundering on, talking of the weather, and of +his sick child, and 'Mr. Elsmere,' with a kind of listless incoherence +which hardly demanded an answer, though Langham threw in a word or two +here and there. + +Among other things, he began to ask a question or two about Robert's +predecessor, a certain Mr. Preston, who had left behind him a memory of +amiable evangelical indolence. + +'Did you see much of him?' he asked. + +'Oh law, no, sir!' replied the man, surprised into something like +energy. 'Never seed 'im more 'n once a year, and sometimes not that!' + +'Was he liked here?' + +'Well, sir, it was like this, you see. My wife, she's north-country, she +is, comes from Yorkshire; sometimes she'd used to say to me, "Passon +'ee ain't much good, and passon 'ee ain't much harm. 'Ee's no more good +nor more 'arm, so fer as _I_ can see, nor a chip in a basin o' +parritch." And that was just about it; sir,' said the old man, pleased +for the hundredth time with his wife's bygone flight of metaphor and his +own exact memory of it. + +As to the rector's tendance of his child, his tone was very cool and +guarded. + +'It do seem strange, sir, as nor he nor Doctor Grimes 'ull let her have +anything to put a bit of flesh on her, nothin' but them messy things as +he brings--milk an' that. An' the beef jelly--lor, such a trouble! +Missis Elsmere, he tells my wife, strains all the stuff through a cloth, +she do; never seed anythin' like it, nor my wife neither. People is +clever nowadays,' said the speaker dubiously. Langham realised that, in +this quarter of his parish at any rate, his friend's pastoral vanity, if +he had any, would not find much to feed on. Nothing, to judge from this +specimen at least, greatly affected an inhabitant of Mile End. +Gratitude, responsiveness, imply health and energy, past or present. The +only constant defence which the poor have against such physical +conditions as those which prevailed at Mile End is apathy. + +As they came down the dilapidated steps at the cottage door, Robert drew +in with avidity a long draught of the outer air. + +'Ugh!' he said with a sort of groan, 'that bedroom! Nothing gives one +such a sense of the toughness of human life as to see a child +recovering, actually recovering, in such a pestilential den! Father, +mother, grown-up son, girl of thirteen, and grandchild, all huddled in a +space just fourteen feet square. Langham!' and he turned passionately on +his companion, 'what defence can be found for a man who lives in a place +like Murewell Hall, and can take money from human beings for the use of +a sty like that?' + +'Gently, my friend. Probably the squire, being the sort of recluse he +is, has never seen the place, or, at any rate, not for years, and knows +nothing about it!' + +'More shame for him!' + +'True in a sense,' said Langham, a little drily; 'but as you _may_ want +hereafter to make excuses for your man, and he _may_ give you occasion, +I wouldn't begin by painting him to yourself any blacker than need be.' + +Robert laughed, sighed and acquiesced. 'I am a hot-headed, impatient +kind of creature at the best of times,' he confessed. 'They tell me that +great things have been done for the poor round here in the last twenty +years. Something has been done, certainly. But why are the old ways, the +old evil neglect and apathy, so long, so terribly long in dying? This +social progress of ours we are so proud of is a clumsy limping jade at +best!' + +They prowled a little more about the hamlet, every step almost revealing +some new source of poison and disease. Of their various visits, +however, Langham remembered nothing afterwards but a little scene in a +miserable cottage, where they found a whole family party gathered round +the mid-day meal. A band of puny, black, black-eyed children were +standing or sitting at the table. The wife, confined of twins three +weeks before, sat by the fire, deathly pale, a 'bad leg' stretched out +before her on some improvised support, one baby on her lap and another +dark-haired bundle asleep in a cradle beside her. There was a pathetic +pinched beauty about the whole family. Even the tiny twins were +comparatively shapely; all the other children had delicate transparent +skins, large eyes, and small colourless mouths. The father, a +picturesque handsome fellow, looking as though he had gipsy blood in his +veins, had opened the door to their knock. Robert, seeing the meal, +would have retreated at once, in spite of the children's shy inviting +looks, but a glance past them at the mother's face checked the word of +refusal and apology on his lips, and he stepped in. + +In after years Langham was always apt to see him in imagination as he +saw him then, standing beside the bent figure of the mother, his quick +pitiful eyes taking in the pallor and exhaustion of face and frame, his +hand resting instinctively on the head of a small creature that had +crept up beside him, his look all attention and softness as the woman +feebly told him some of the main facts of her state. The young rector at +the moment might have stood for the modern 'Man of Feeling,' as +sensitive, as impressionable, and as free from the burden of self, as +his eighteenth-century prototype. + +On the way home Robert suddenly remarked to his companion, 'Have you +heard my sister-in-law play yet, Langham? What did you think of it?' + +'Extraordinary!' said Langham briefly. 'The most considerable gift I +ever came across in an amateur.' + +His olive cheek flushed a little involuntarily. Robert threw a quick +observant look at him. + +'The difficulty,' he exclaimed, 'is to know what to do with it!' + +'Why do you make the difficulty? I gather she wants to study abroad. +What is there to prevent it?' + +Langham turned to his companion with a touch of asperity. He could not +stand it that Elsmere should be so much narrowed and warped by that wife +of his, and her prejudices. Why should that gifted creature be cribbed, +cabined, and confined in this way? + +'I grant you,' said Robert, with a look of perplexity, 'there is not +much to prevent it.' + +And he was silent a moment, thinking, on his side, very tenderly of all +the antecedents and explanations of that old-world distrust of art and +the artistic life so deeply rooted in his wife, even though in practice +and under his influence she had made concession after concession. + +'The great solution of all,' he said presently, brightening, 'would be +to get her married. I don't wonder her belongings dislike the notion of +anything so pretty and so flighty going off to live by itself. And to +break up the home in Whindale would be to undo everything their father +did for them, to defy his most solemn last wishes.' + +'To talk of a father's wishes, in a case of this kind, ten years after +his death, is surely excessive?' said Langham with dry interrogation; +then, suddenly recollecting himself, 'I beg your pardon, Elsmere. I am +interfering.' + +'Nonsense,' said Robert brightly, 'I don't wonder, it seems like a +difficulty of our own making. Like so many difficulties, it depends on +character, present character, bygone character----' And again he fell +musing on his Westmoreland experiences, and on the intensity of that +Puritan type it had revealed to him. 'However, as I said, marriage would +be the natural way out of it.' + +'An easy way, I should think,' said Langham, after a pause. + +'It won't be so easy to find the right man. She is a young person with a +future, is Miss Rose. She wants somebody in the stream; somebody with a +strong hand who will keep her in order and yet give her a wide range; a +rich man, I think--she hasn't the ways of a poor man's wife; but, at any +rate, some one who will be proud of her, and yet have a full life of his +own in which she may share.' + +'Your views are extremely clear,' said Langham, and his smile had a +touch of bitterness in it. 'If hers agree, I prophesy you won't have +long to wait. She has beauty, talent, charm--everything that rich and +important men like.' + +There was the slightest sarcastic note in the voice. Robert winced. It +was borne in upon one of the least worldly of mortals that he had been +talking like the veriest schemer. What vague quick impulse had driven +him on? + +By the time they emerged again upon the Murewell Green the rain had +cleared altogether away, and the autumnal morning had broken into +sunshine, which played mistily on the sleeping woods, on the white +fronts of the cottages, and the wide green where the rain-pools +glistened. On the hill leading to the rectory there was the flutter of a +woman's dress. As they hurried on, afraid of being late for luncheon, +they saw that it was Rose in front of them. + +Langham started as the slender figure suddenly defined itself against +the road. A tumult within, half rage, half feeling, showed itself only +in an added rigidity of the finely-cut features. + +Rose turned directly she heard the steps and voices, and over the +dreaminess of her face there flashed a sudden brightness. + +'You _have_ been a long time!' she exclaimed, saying the first thing +that came into her head, joyously, rashly, like the child she in reality +was. 'How many halt and maimed has Robert taken you to see, Mr. +Langham?' + +'We went to Murewell first. The library was well worth seeing. Since +then we have been a parish round, distributing stores.' + +Rose's look changed in an instant. The words were spoken by the Langham +of her earliest acquaintance. The man who that morning had asked her to +play to him had gone--vanished away. + +'How exhilarating!' she said scornfully. 'Don't you wonder how any one +can ever tear themselves away from the country?' + +'Rose, don't be abusive,' said Robert, opening his eyes at her tone. +Then, passing his arm through hers, he looked banteringly down upon her. +'For the first time since you left the metropolis you have walked +yourself into a colour. It's becoming--and it's Murewell--so be civil!' + +'Oh, nobody denies you a high place in milkmaids!' she said, with her +head in air--and they went off into a minute's sparring. + +Meanwhile Langham, on the other side of the road, walked up slowly, his +eyes on the ground. Once, when Rose's eye caught him, a shock ran +through her. There was already a look of slovenly age about his stooping +bookworm's gait. Her companion of the night before--handsome, animated, +human--where was he? The girl's heart felt a singular contraction. Then +she turned and rent herself, and Robert found her more mocking and +sprightly than ever. + +At the rectory gate Robert ran on to overtake a farmer on the road. Rose +stooped to open the latch; Langham mechanically made a quick movement +forward to anticipate her. Their fingers touched; she drew hers hastily +away and passed in, an erect and dignified figure, in her curving garden +hat. + +Langham went straight up to his room, shut the door, and stood before +the open window, deaf and blind to everything save an inward storm of +sensation. + +'Fool! Idiot!' he said to himself at last, with fierce stifled emphasis, +while a kind of dumb fury with himself and circumstance swept through +him. + +That he, the poor and solitary student whose only sources of +self-respect lay in the deliberate limitations, the reasoned and +reasonable renunciations he had imposed upon his life, should have +needed the reminder of his old pupil not to fall in love with his +brilliant ambitious sister! His irritable self-consciousness enormously +magnified Elsmere's motive and Elsmere's words. That golden vagueness +and softness of temper which had possessed him since his last sight of +her gave place to one of bitter tension. + +With sardonic scorn he pointed out to himself that his imagination was +still held by, his nerves were still thrilling under, the mental image +of a girl looking up to him as no woman had ever looked--a girl, +white-armed, white-necked--with softened eyes of appeal and confidence. +He bade himself mark that during the whole of his morning walk with +Robert down to its last stage, his mind had been really absorbed in some +preposterous dream he was now too self-contemptuous to analyse. Pretty +well for a philosopher, in four days! What a ridiculous business is +life--what a contemptible creature is man, how incapable of dignity, of +consistency! + +At luncheon he talked rather more than usual, especially on literary +matters with Robert. Rose, too, was fully occupied in giving Catherine a +sarcastic account of a singing lesson she had been administering in the +school that morning. Catherine winced sometimes at the tone of it. + +That afternoon Robert, in high spirits, his rod over his shoulder, his +basket at his back, carried off his guest for a lounging afternoon along +the river. Elsmere enjoyed these fishing expeditions like a boy. They +were his holidays, relished all the more because he kept a jealous +account of them with his conscience. He sauntered along, now throwing a +cunning and effectual fly, now resting, smoking, and chattering, as the +fancy took him. He found a great deal of the old stimulus and piquancy +in Langham's society, but there was an occasional irritability in his +companion, especially towards himself personally, which puzzled him. +After a while, indeed, he began to feel himself the unreasonably +cheerful person which he evidently appeared to his companion. A mere +ignorant enthusiast, banished for ever from the realm of pure knowledge +by certain original and incorrigible defects--after a few hours' talk +with Langham Robert's quick insight always showed him some image of +himself resembling this in his friend's mind. + +At last he turned restive. He had been describing to Langham his +acquaintance with the Dissenting minister of the place--a strong +coarse-grained fellow of sensuous excitable temperament, famous for his +noisy 'conversion meetings,' and for a gymnastic dexterity in the +quoting and combining of texts, unrivalled in Robert's experience. Some +remark on the Dissenter's logic, made, perhaps, a little too much in the +tone of the Churchman conscious of University advantages, seemed to +irritate Langham. + +'You think your Anglican logic in dealing with the Bible so superior! On +the contrary, I am all for your Ranter. He is your logical Protestant. +Historically, you Anglican parsons are where you are and what you are, +because Englishmen, as a whole, like attempting the contradictory--like, +above all, to eat their cake and have it. The nation has made you and +maintains you for its own purposes. But that is another matter.' + +Robert smoked on a moment in silence. Then he flushed and laid down his +pipe. + +'We are all fools in your eyes, I know! _A la bonne heure!_ I +have been to the University, and talk what he is pleased to call +"philosophy"--therefore Mr. Colson denies me faith. You have always, in +your heart of hearts, denied me knowledge. But I cling to both in spite +of you.' + +There was a ray of defiance, of emotion, in his look. Langham met it in +silence. + +'I deny you nothing,' he said at last, slowly. 'On the contrary, I +believe you to be the possessor of all that is best worth having in life +and mind.' + +His irritation had all died away. His tone was one of indescribable +depression, and his great black eyes were fixed on Robert with a +melancholy which startled his companion. By a subtle transition Elsmere +felt himself touched with a pang of profound pity for the man who an +instant before had seemed to pose as his scornful superior. He stretched +out his hand, and laid it on his friend's shoulder. + + * * * * * + +Rose spent the afternoon in helping Catherine with various parochial +occupations. In the course of them Catherine asked many questions about +Long Whindale. Her thoughts clung to the hills, to the gray farmhouses, +the rough men and women inside them. But Rose gave her small +satisfaction. + +'Poor old Jim Backhouse!' said Catherine, sighing. 'Agnes tells me he is +quite bedridden now.' + +'Well, and a good thing for John, don't you think,' said Rose briskly, +covering a parish library book the while in a way which made Catherine's +fingers itch to take it from her, 'and for us? It's some use having a +carrier now.' + +Catherine made no reply. She thought of the 'noodle' fading out of life +in the room where Mary Backhouse died; she actually saw the white hair, +the blurred eyes, the palsied hands, the poor emaciated limbs stretched +along the settle. Her heart rose, but she said nothing. + +'And has Mrs. Thornburgh been enjoying her summer?' + +'Oh! I suppose so,' said Rose, her tone indicating a quite measureless +indifference. 'She had another young Oxford man staying with her in +June--a missionary--and it annoyed her very much that neither Agnes nor +I would intervene to prevent his resuming his profession. She seemed to +think it was a question of saving him from being eaten, and apparently +he would have proposed to either of us.' + +Catherine could not help laughing. 'I suppose she still thinks she +married Robert and me.' + +'Of course. So she did.' + +Catherine coloured a little, but Rose's hard lightness of tone was +unconquerable. + +'Or if she didn't,' Rose resumed, 'nobody could have the heart to rob +her of the illusion. Oh, by the way, Sarah has been under warning since +June! Mrs. Thornburgh told her desperately that she must either throw +over her young man, who was picked up drunk at the vicarage gate one +night, or vacate the vicarage kitchen. Sarah cheerfully accepted her +month's notice, and is still making the vicarage jams and walking out +with the young man every Sunday. Mrs. Thornburgh sees that it will +require a convulsion of nature to get rid either of Sarah or the young +man, and has succumbed.' + +'And the Tysons? And that poor Walker girl?' + +'Oh, dear me, Catherine!' said Rose, a strange disproportionate flash of +impatience breaking through. 'Every one in Long Whindale is always just +where and what they were last year. I admit they are born and die, but +they do nothing else of a decisive kind.' + +Catherine's hands worked away for a while, then she laid down her book +and said, lifting her clear large eyes on her sister,-- + +'Was there _never_ a time when you loved the valley, Rose?' + +'Never!' cried Rose. + +Then she pushed away her work, and leaning her elbows on the table +turned her brilliant face to Catherine. There was frank mutiny in it. + +'By the way, Catherine, are you going to prevent mamma from letting me +go to Berlin for the winter?' + +'And after Berlin, Rose?' said Catherine, presently, her gaze bent upon +her work. + +'After Berlin? What next?' said Rose recklessly. 'Well, after Berlin I +shall try to persuade mamma and Agnes, I suppose, to come and back me up +in London. We could still be some months of the year at Burwood.' + +Now she had said it out. But there was something else surely goading the +girl than mere intolerance of the family tradition. The hesitancy, the +moral doubt of her conversation with Langham, seemed to have vanished +wholly in a kind of acrid self-assertion. + +Catherine felt a shock sweep through her. It was as though all the +pieties of life, all the sacred assumptions and self-surrenders at the +root of it, were shaken, outraged by the girl's tone. + +'Do you ever remember,' she said, looking up, while her voice trembled, +'what papa wished when he was dying?' + +It was her last argument. To Rose she had very seldom used it in so many +words. Probably, it seemed to her too strong, too sacred, to be often +handled. + +But Rose sprang up, and pacing the little workroom with her white wrists +locked behind her, she met that argument with all the concentrated +passion which her youth had for years been storing up against it. +Catherine sat presently overwhelmed, bewildered. This language of a +proud and tameless individuality, this modern gospel of the divine right +of self-development--her soul loathed it! And yet, since that night in +Marrisdale, there had been a new yearning in her to understand. + +Suddenly, however, Rose stopped, lost her thread. Two figures were +crossing the lawn, and their shadows were thrown far beyond them by the +fast disappearing sun. + +She threw herself down on her chair again with an abrupt-- + +'Do you see they have come back? We must go and dress.' + +And as she spoke she was conscious of a new sensation altogether--the +sensation of the wild creature lassoed on the prairie, of the bird +exchanging in an instant its glorious freedom of flight for the pitiless +meshes of the net. It was stifling--her whole nature seemed to fight +with it. + +Catherine rose and began to put away the books they had been covering. +She had said almost nothing in answer to Rose's tirade. When she was +ready she came and stood beside her sister a moment, her lips trembling. +At last she stooped and kissed the girl--the kiss of deep suppressed +feeling--and went away. Rose made no response. + +Unmusical as she was, Catherine pined for her sister's music that +evening. Robert was busy in his study, and the hours seemed +interminable. After a little difficult talk Langham subsided into a book +and a corner. But the only words of which he was conscious for long were +the words of an inner dialogue. 'I promised to play for her.--Go and +offer then!--Madness! let me keep away from her. If she asks me, of +course I will go. She is much too proud, and already she thinks me +guilty of a rudeness.' + +Then, with a shrug, he would fall to his book again, abominably +conscious, however, all the while of the white figure between the lamp +and the open window, and of the delicate head and cheek lit up against +the trees and the soft August dark. + +When the time came to go to bed he got their candles for the two ladies. +Rose just touched his hand with cool fingers. + +'Good-night, Mr. Langham. You are going in to smoke with Robert, I +suppose?' + +Her bright eyes seemed to look him through. Their mocking hostility +seemed to say to him as plainly as possible: 'Your purgatory is +over--go, smoke and be happy!' + +'I will go and help him wind up his sermon,' he said, with an attempt at +a laugh, and moved away. + +Rose went upstairs, and it seemed to her that a Greek brow, and a pair +of wavering melancholy eyes, went before her in the darkness chased +along the passages by the light she held. She gained her room, and stood +by the window, seized again by that stifling sense of catastrophe, so +strange, so undefined. Then she shook it off with an angry laugh, and +went to work to see how far her stock of light dresses had suffered by +her London dissipations. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The next morning after breakfast the rectory party were in the +garden--the gentlemen smoking, Catherine and her sister strolling +arm-in-arm among the flowers. Catherine's vague terrors of the morning +before had all taken to themselves wings. It seemed to her that Rose and +Mr. Langham had hardly spoken to each other since she had seen them +walking about together. Robert had already made merry over his own +alarms, and hers, and she admitted he was in the right. As to her talk +with Rose her deep meditative nature was slowly working upon and +digesting it. Meanwhile, she was all tenderness to her sister, and there +was even a reaction of pity in her heart towards the lonely sceptic who +had once been so good to Robert. + +Robert was just bethinking himself that it was time to go off to the +school, when they were all startled by an unexpected visitor--a short +old lady, in a rusty black dress and bonnet, who entered the drive and +stood staring at the rectory party, a tiny hand in a black thread glove +shading the sun from a pair of wrinkled eyes. + +'Mrs. Darcy!' exclaimed Robert to his wife after a moment's perplexity, +and they walked quickly to meet her. + +Rose and Langham exchanged a few commonplaces till the others joined +them, and then for a while the attention of everybody in the group was +held by the squire's sister. She was very small, as thin and light as +thistle-down, ill-dressed, and as communicative as a babbling child. The +face and all the features were extraordinarily minute, and moreover, +blanched and etherealised by age. She had the elfish look of a little +withered fairy godmother. And yet through it all it was clear that she +was a great lady. There were certain poses and gestures about her, which +made her thread gloves and rusty skirts seem a mere whim and masquerade, +adopted, perhaps deliberately, from a high-bred love of congruity, to +suit the country lanes. + +She had come to ask them all to dinner at the Hall on the following +evening, and she either brought or devised on the spot the politest +messages from the squire to the new rector, which pleased the sensitive +Robert and silenced for the moment his various misgivings as to Mr. +Wendover's advent. Then she stayed chattering, studying Rose every now +and then out of her strange little eyes, restless and glancing as a +bird's, which took stock also of the garden, of the flower-beds, of +Elsmere's lanky frame, and of Elsmere's handsome friend in the +background. She was most odd when she was grateful, and she was grateful +for the most unexpected things. She thanked Elsmere effusively for +coming to live there, 'sacrificing yourself so nobly to us country +folk,' and she thanked him with an appreciative glance at Langham, for +having his clever friends to stay with him. 'The squire will be so +pleased. My brother, you know, is very clever; oh yes, frightfully +clever!' + +And then there was a long sigh, at which Elsmere could hardly keep his +countenance. + +She thought it particularly considerate of them to have been to see the +squire's books. It would make conversation so easy when they came to +dinner. + +'Though I don't know anything about his books. He doesn't like women to +talk about books. He says they only pretend--even the clever ones. +Except, of course, Madame de Stael. He can only say she was ugly, and I +don't deny it. But I have about used up Madame de Stael,' she added, +dropping into another sigh as soft and light as a child's. + +Robert was charmed with her, and even Langham smiled. And as Mrs. Darcy +adored 'clever men,' ranking them, as the London of her youth had ranked +them, only second to 'persons of birth,' she stood among them beaming, +becoming more and more whimsical and inconsequent, more and more +deliciously incalculable, as she expanded. At last she fluttered off, +only, however, to come hurrying back, with little, short, scudding +steps, to implore them all to come to tea with her as soon as possible +in the garden that was her special hobby, and in her last new +summer-house. + +'I build two or three every summer,' she said. 'Now, there are +twenty-one! Roger laughs at me,' and there was a momentary bitterness in +the little eerie face, 'but how can one live without hobbies? That's +one--then I've two more. My album--oh, you _will_ all write in my album, +won't you? When I was young--when I was Maid of Honour'--and she drew +herself up slightly--'everybody had albums. Even the dear Queen herself! +I remember how she made M. Guizot write in it; something quite stupid, +after all. _Those_ hobbies--the garden and the album--are _quite_ +harmless, aren't they? They hurt nobody, do they?' Her voice dropped a +little, with a pathetic expostulating intonation in it, as of one +accustomed to be rebuked. + +'Let me remind you of a saying of Bacon's,' said Langham, studying her, +and softened perforce into benevolence. + +'Yes, yes,' said Mrs. Darcy in a flutter of curiosity. + +'God Almighty first planted a garden,' he quoted; 'and indeed, it is the +purest of all human pleasures.' + +'Oh, but how _delightful_!' cried Mrs. Darcy, clasping her diminutive +hands in their thread gloves. 'You must write that in my album, Mr. +Langham, that very sentence; oh, how _clever_ of you to remember it! +What it is to be clever and have a brain! But, then--I've another +hobby----' + +Here, however, she stopped, hung her head and looked depressed. Robert, +with a little ripple of laughter, begged her to explain. + +'No,' she said plaintively, giving a quick uneasy look at him, as though +it occurred to her that it might some day be his pastoral duty to +admonish her. 'No, it's wrong. I know it is--only I can't help it. Never +mind. You'll know soon.' + +And again she turned away, when, suddenly, Rose attracted her attention, +and she stretched out a thin white bird-claw of a hand and caught the +girl's arm. + +'There won't be much to amuse you to-morrow, my dear, and there ought +to be--you're so pretty!' Rose blushed furiously and tried to draw her +hand away. 'No, no! don't mind, don't mind. I didn't at your age. Well, +we'll do our best. But your own party is so _charming_!' and she looked +round the little circle, her gaze stopping specially at Langham before +it returned to Rose. 'After all, you will amuse each other.' + +Was there any malice in the tiny withered creature? Rose, unsympathetic +and indifferent as youth commonly is when its own affairs absorb it, had +stood coldly outside the group which was making much of the squire's +sister. Was it so the strange little visitor revenged herself? + +At any rate Rose was left feeling as if some one had pricked her. While +Catherine and Elsmere escorted Mrs. Darcy to the gate she turned to go +in, her head thrown back stag-like, her cheek still burning. Why should +it be always open to the old to annoy the young with impunity? + +Langham watched her mount the first step or two; his eye travelled up +the slim figure so instinct with pride and will--and something in him +suddenly gave way. It was like a man who feels his grip relaxing on some +attacking thing he has been holding by the throat. + +He followed her hastily. + +'Must you go in? And none of us have paid our respects yet to those +phloxes in the back garden?' + +Oh woman--flighty woman! An instant before, the girl, sore and bruised +in every fibre, she only half knew why, was thirsting that this man +might somehow offer her his neck that she might trample on it. He offers +it, and the angry instinct wavers, as a man wavers in a wrestling match +when his opponent unexpectedly gives ground. She paused, she turned her +white throat. His eyes upturned met hers. + +'The phloxes did you say?' she asked, coolly redescending the steps. +'Then round here, please.' + +She led the way, he followed, conscious of an utter relaxation of nerve +and will which for the moment had something intoxicating in it. + +'There are your phloxes,' she said, stopping before a splendid line of +plants in full blossom. Her self-respect was whole again; her spirits +rose at a bound. 'I don't know why you admire them so much. They have no +scent, and they are only pretty in the lump,' and she broke off a spike +of blossom, studied it a little disdainfully, and threw it away. + +He stood beside her, the southern glow and life of which it was +intermittently capable once more lighting up the strange face. + +'Give me leave to enjoy everything countrified more than usual,' he +said. 'After this morning it will be so long before I see the true +country again.' + +He looked, smiling, round on the blue and white brilliance of the sky, +clear again after a night of rain; on the sloping garden, on the +village beyond, on the hedge of sweet peas close beside them, with its +blooms + + 'On tiptoe for a flight, + With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white.' + +'Oh! Oxford is countrified enough,' she said indifferently, moving down +the broad grass-path which divided the garden into two equal portions. + +'But I am leaving Oxford, at any rate for a year,' he said quietly. 'I +am going to London.' + +Her delicate eyebrows went up. 'To London?' Then, in a tone of mock +meekness and sympathy, 'How you will dislike it!' + +'Dislike it--why?' + +'Oh! because--' she hesitated, and then laughed her daring girlish +laugh--'because there are so many stupid people in London; the clever +people are not all picked out like prize apples, as I suppose they are +in Oxford.' + +'At Oxford?' repeated Langham, with a kind of groan. 'At Oxford? You +imagine that Oxford is inhabited only by clever people?' + +'I can only judge by what I see,' she said demurely. 'Every Oxford man +always behaves as if he were the cream of the universe. Oh! I don't mean +to be rude,' she cried, losing for a moment her defiant control over +herself, as though afraid of having gone too far. 'I am not the least +disrespectful, really. When you and Robert talk, Catherine and I feel +quite as humble as we ought.' + +The words were hardly out before she could have bitten the tongue that +spoke them. He had made her feel her indiscretions of Sunday night as +she deserved to feel them, and now after three minutes conversation she +was on the verge of fresh ones. Would she never grow up, never behave +like other girls? That word _humble_! It seemed to burn her memory. + +Before he could possibly answer she barred the way by a question as +short and dry as possible-- + +'What are you going to London for?' + +'For many reasons,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'I have told no +one yet--not even Elsmere. And indeed I go back to my rooms for a while +from here. But as soon as Term begins I become a Londoner.' + +They had reached the gate at the bottom of the garden, and were leaning +against it. She was disturbed, conscious, lightly flushed. It struck her +as another _gaucherie_ on her part that she should have questioned him +as to his plans. What did his life matter to her? + +He was looking away from her, studying the half-ruined, degraded manor +house spread out below them. Then suddenly he turned-- + +'If I could imagine for a moment it would interest you to hear my +reasons for leaving Oxford, I could not flatter myself you would see +any sense in them. I _know_ that Robert will think them moonshine; nay, +more, that they will give him pain.' + +He smiled sadly. The tone of gentleness, the sudden breach in the man's +melancholy reserve affected the girl beside him for the second time, +precisely as they had affected her the first time. The result of +twenty-four hours' resentful meditation turned out to be precisely +_nil_. Her breath came fast, her proud look melted, and his quick sense +caught the change in an instant. + +'Are you tired of Oxford?' the poor child asked him, almost shyly. + +'Mortally!' he said, still smiling. 'And what is more important still, +Oxford is tired of me. I have been lecturing there for ten years. They +have had more than enough of me.' + +'Oh! but Robert said----' began Rose impetuously, then stopped, crimson, +remembering many things Robert had said. + +'That I helped him over a few stiles?' returned Langham calmly. 'Yes, +there was a time when I was capable of that--there was a time when I +could teach, and teach with pleasure.' He paused. Rose could have +scourged herself for the tremor she felt creeping over her. Why should +it be to her so new and strange a thing that _a man_, especially a man +of these years and this calibre, should confide in her, should speak to +her intimately of himself? After all, she said to herself angrily, with +a terrified sense of importance, she was a child no longer, though her +mother and sisters would treat her as one. 'When we were chatting the +other night,' he went on, turning to her again as he stood leaning on +the gate, 'do you know what it was struck me most?' + +His tone had in it the most delicate, the most friendly deference. But +Rose flushed furiously. + +'That girls are very ready to talk about themselves, I imagine,' she +said scornfully. + +'Not at all! Not for a moment! No, but it seemed to me so pathetic, so +strange that anybody should wish for anything so much as you wished for +the musician's life.' + +'And you never wish for anything?' she cried. + +'When Elsmere was at college,' he said, smiling, 'I believe I wished he +should get a first class. This year I have certainly wished to say +good-bye to St. Anselm's, and to turn my back for good and all on my +men. I can't remember that I have wished for anything else for six +years.' + +She looked at him perplexed. Was his manner merely languid, or was it +from him that the emotion she felt invading herself first started? She +tried to shake it off. + +'And _I_ am just a bundle of wants,' she said, half-mockingly. +'Generally speaking I am in the condition of being ready to barter all I +have for some folly or other--one in the morning, another in the +afternoon. What have you to say to such people, Mr. Langham?' + +Her eyes challenged him magnificently, mostly out of sheer nervousness. +But the face they rested on seemed suddenly to turn to stone before her. +The life died out of it. It grew still and rigid. + +'Nothing,' he said quietly. 'Between them and me there is a great gulf +fixed. I watch them pass, and I say to myself: "There are _the +living_--that is how they look, how they speak! Realise once for all +that you have nothing to do with them. Life is theirs--belongs to +_them_. You are already outside it. Go your way, and be a spectre among +the active and the happy no longer."' + +He leant his back against the gate. Did he see her? Was he conscious of +her at all in this rare impulse of speech which had suddenly overtaken +one of the most withdrawn and silent of human beings? All her airs +dropped off her; a kind of fright seized her; and involuntarily she laid +her hand on his arm. + +'Don't--don't--Mr. Langham! Oh, don't say such things! Why should you be +so unhappy? Why should you talk so? Can no one do anything? Why do you +live so much alone? Is there no one you care about?' + +He turned. What a vision! His artistic sense absorbed it in an +instant--the beautiful tremulous lip, the drawn white brow. For a moment +he drank in the pity, the emotion, of those eyes. Then a movement of +such self-scorn as even he had never felt swept through him. He gently +moved away; her hand dropped. + +'Miss Leyburn,' he said, gazing at her, his olive face singularly pale, +'don't waste your pity on me, for Heaven's sake. Some madness made me +behave as I did just now. Years ago the same sort of idiocy betrayed me +to your brother; never before or since. I ask your pardon, humbly,' and +his tone seemed to scorch her, 'that this second fit of ranting should +have seized me in your presence.' + +But he could not keep it up. The inner upheaval had gone too far. He +stopped and looked at her--piteously, the features quivering. It was as +though the man's whole nature had for the moment broken up, become +disorganised. She could not bear it. Some ghastly infirmity seemed to +have been laid bare to her. She held out both her hands. Swiftly he +caught them, stooped, kissed them, let them go. It was an extraordinary +scene--to both a kind of lifetime. + +Then he gathered himself together by a mighty effort. + +'That was _adorable_ of you,' he said with a long breath. 'But I stole +it--I despise myself. Why should you pity me? What is there to pity me +for? My troubles, such as I have, are my own making--every one.' + +And he laid a sort of vindictive emphasis on the words. The tears of +excitement were in her eyes. + +'Won't you let me be your friend?' she said, trembling, with a kind of +reproach. 'I thought--the other night--we were to be friends. Won't you +tell me----' + +'More of yourself?' her eyes said, but her voice failed her. And as for +him, as he gazed at her, all the accidents of circumstance, of +individual character, seemed to drop from her. He forgot the difference +of years; he saw her no longer as she was--a girl hardly out of the +schoolroom, vain, ambitious, dangerously responsive, on whose crude +romantic sense he was wantonly playing; she was to him pure beauty, pure +woman. For one tumultuous moment the cold critical instinct which had +been for years draining his life of all its natural energies was +powerless. It was sweet to yield, to speak, as it had never been sweet +before. + +So, leaning over the gate, he told her the story of his life, of his +cramped childhood and youth, of his brief moment of happiness and +success at college, of his first attempts to make himself a power among +younger men, of the gradual dismal failure of all his efforts, the dying +down of desire and ambition. From the general narrative there stood out +little pictures of individual persons or scenes, clear cut and +masterly--of his father, the Gainsborough churchwarden; of his +Methodistical mother, who had all her life lamented her own beauty as a +special snare of Satan, and who since her husband's death had refused to +see her son on the ground that his opinions 'had vexed his father'; of +his first ardent worship of knowledge, and passion to communicate it; +and of the first intuitions in lecture, face to face with an +undergraduate, alone in college rooms, sometimes alone on Alpine +heights, of something cold, impotent and baffling in himself, which was +to stand for ever between him and action, between him and human +affection; the growth of the critical pessimist sense which laid the axe +to the root of enthusiasm after enthusiasm, friendship after +friendship--which made other men feel him inhuman, intangible, a +skeleton at the feast: and the persistence through it all of a kind of +hunger for life and its satisfactions, which the will was more and more +powerless to satisfy: all these Langham put into words with an +extraordinary magic and delicacy of phrase. There was something in him +which found a kind of pleasure in the long analysis, which took pains +that it should be infinitely well done. + +Rose followed him breathlessly. If she had known more of literature she +would have realised that she was witnessing a masterly dissection of one +of those many morbid growths of which our nineteenth century psychology +is full. But she was anything but literary, and she could not analyse +her excitement. The man's physical charm, his melancholy, the intensity +of what he said, affected, unsteadied her as music was apt to affect +her. And through it all there was the strange girlish pride that this +should have befallen _her_; a first crude intoxicating sense of the +power over human lives which was to be hers, mingled with a desperate +anxiety to be equal to the occasion, to play her part well. + +'So you see,' said Langham at last, with a great effort (to do him +justice) to climb back on to some ordinary level of conversation; 'all +these transcendentalisms apart, I am about the most unfit man in the +world for a college tutor. The undergraduates regard me as a +shilly-shallying pedant. On my part,' he added drily, 'I am not slow to +retaliate. Every term I live I find the young man a less interesting +animal. I regard the whole university system as a wretched sham. +Knowledge! It has no more to do with knowledge than my boots.' + +And for one curious instant he looked out over the village, his +fastidious scholar's soul absorbed by some intellectual irritation, of +which Rose understood absolutely nothing. She stood bewildered, silent, +longing childishly to speak, to influence him, but not knowing what cue +to take. + +'And then--' he went on presently (but was the strange being speaking to +her?)--'so long as I stay there, worrying those about me, and eating my +own heart out, I am cut off from the only life that might be mine, that +I might find the strength to live.' + +The words were low and deliberate. After his moment of passionate +speech, and hers of passionate sympathy, she began to feel strangely +remote from him. + +'Do you mean the life of the student?' she asked him after a pause, +timidly. + +Her voice recalled him. He turned and smiled at her. + +'Of the dreamer, rather.' + +And as her eyes still questioned, as he was still moved by the spell of +her responsiveness, he let the new wave of feeling break in words. +Vaguely at first, and then with a growing flame and force, he fell to +describing to her what the life of thought may be to the thinker, and +those marvellous moments which belong to that life when the mind which +has divorced itself from desire and sense sees spread out before it the +vast realms of knowledge, and feels itself close to the secret springs +and sources of being. And as he spoke, his language took an ampler turn, +the element of smallness which attaches to all mere personal complaint +vanished, his words flowed, became eloquent, inspired, till the +bewildered child beside him, warm through and through as she was with +youth and passion, felt for an instant by sheer fascinated sympathy the +cold spell, the ineffable prestige, of the thinker's voluntary death in +life. + +But only for an instant. Then the natural sense of chill smote her to +the heart. + +'You make me shiver,' she cried, interrupting him. 'Have those strange +things--I don't understand them--made you happy? Can they make any one +happy? Oh no, no! Happiness is to be got from living, seeing, +experiencing, making friends, enjoying nature! Look at the world, Mr. +Langham!' she said, with bright cheeks, half smiling at her own +magniloquence, her hand waving over the view before them. 'What has it +done that you should hate it so? If you can't put up with people you +might love nature. I--I can't be content with nature, because I want +some life first. Up in Whindale there is too much nature, not enough +life. But if I had got through life--if it had disappointed me--then I +should love nature. I keep saying to the mountains at home: "Not _now_, +not _now_; I want something else, but afterwards if I can't get it, or +if I get too much of it, why then I will love you, live with you. You +are my second string, my reserve. You--and art--and poetry."' + +'But everything depends on feeling,' he said softly, but lightly, as +though to keep the conversation from slipping back into those vague +depths it had emerged from; 'and if one has forgotten how to feel--if +when one sees or hears something beautiful that used to stir one, one +can only say "I remember it moved me once!"--if feeling dies, like life, +like physical force, but prematurely, long before the rest of the man!' + +She gave a long quivering sigh of passionate antagonism. + +'Oh, I cannot imagine it!' she cried. 'I shall feel to my last hour.' +Then, after a pause, in another tone, 'But, Mr. Langham, you say music +excites you, Wagner excites you?' + +'Yes, a sort of strange second life I can still get out of music,' he +admitted, smiling. + +'Well then,' and she looked at him persuasively, 'why not give yourself +up to music? It is so easy--so little trouble to one's self--it just +takes you and carries you away.' + +Then, for the first time, Langham became conscious--probably through +these admonitions of hers--that the situation had absurdity in it. + +'It is not my _metier_,' he said hastily. 'The self that enjoys music is +an outer self, and can only bear with it for a short time. No, Miss +Leyburn, I shall leave Oxford, the college will sing a _Te Deum_, I +shall settle down in London, I shall keep a big book going, and cheat +the years after all, I suppose, as well as most people.' + +'And you will know, you will remember,' she said faltering, reddening, +her womanliness forcing the words out of her, 'that you have friends: +Robert--my sister--all of us?' + +He faced her with a little quick movement. And as their eyes met each +was struck once more with the personal beauty of the other. His eyes +shone--their black depths seemed all tenderness. + +'I will never forget this visit, this garden, this hour,' he said +slowly, and they stood looking at each other. Rose felt herself swept +off her feet into a world of tragic mysterious emotion. She all but put +her hand into his again, asking him childishly to hope, to be consoled. +But the maidenly impulse restrained her, and once more he leant on the +gate, burying his face in his hands. + +Suddenly he felt himself utterly tired, relaxed. Strong nervous reaction +set in. What had all this scene, this tragedy, been about? And then in +another instant was that sense of the ridiculous again clamouring to be +heard. He--the man of thirty-five--confessing himself, making a tragic +scene, playing Manfred or Cain to this adorable half-fledged creature, +whom he had known five days! Supposing Elsmere had been there to +hear--Elsmere with his sane eye, his laugh! As he leant over the gate he +found himself quivering with impatience to be away--by himself--out of +reach--the critic in him making the most bitter remorseless mock of all +these heroics and despairs the other self had been indulging in. But for +the life of him he could not find a word to say--a move to make. He +stood hesitating, _gauche_, as usual. + +'Do you know, Mr. Langham,' said Rose lightly, by his side, 'that there +is no time at all left for _you_ to give _me_ good advice in? That is an +obligation still hanging over you. I don't mean to release you from it, +but if I don't go in now and finish the covering of those library books, +the youth of Murewell will be left without any literature till Heaven +knows when!' + +He could have blessed her for the tone, for the escape into common +mundanity. + +'Hang literature--hang the parish library!' he said with a laugh as he +moved after her. Yet his real inner feeling towards that parish library +was one of infinite friendliness. + +'Hear these men of letters!' she said scornfully. But she was happy; +there was a glow on her cheek. + +A bramble caught her dress; she stopped and laid her white hand to it, +but in vain. He knelt in an instant, and between them they wrenched it +away, but not till those soft slim fingers had several times felt the +neighbourhood of his brown ones, and till there had flown through and +through him once more, as she stooped over him, the consciousness that +she was young, that she was beautiful, that she had pitied him so +sweetly, that they were alone. + +'Rose!' + +It was Catherine calling--Catherine, who stood at the end of the +grass-path, with eyes all indignation and alarm. + +Langham rose quickly from the ground. + +He felt as though the gods had saved him--or damned him--which? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Murewell Rectory during the next forty-eight hours was the scene of much +that might have been of interest to a psychologist gifted with the power +of divining his neighbours. + +In the first place Catherine's terrors were all alive again Robert had +never seen her so moved since those days of storm and stress before +their engagement. + +'I cannot bear it!' she said to Robert at night in their room. 'I cannot +bear it! I hear it always in my ears: "What hast thou done with thy +sister?" Oh, Robert, don't mind, dear, though he is your friend. My +father would have shrunk from him with horror--_An alien from the +household of faith! An enemy to the Cross of Christ!_' + +She flung out the words with low intense emphasis and frowning brow, +standing rigid by the window, her hands locked behind her. Robert stood +by her much perplexed, feeling himself a good deal of a culprit, but +inwardly conscious that he knew a great deal more about Langham than she +did. + +'My dear wifie,' he said to her, 'I am certain Langham has no intention +of marrying.' + +'Then more shame for him,' cried Catherine, flushing. 'They could not +have looked more conscious, Robert, when I found them together, if he +had just proposed.' + +'What, in five days?' said Robert, more than half inclined to banter his +wife. Then he fell into meditation as Catherine made no answer. 'I +believe with men of that sort,' he said at last, 'relations to women are +never more than half-real--always more or less literature--acting. +Langham is tasting an experience, to be bottled up for future use.' + +It need hardly be said, however, that Catherine got small consolation +out of this point of view. It seemed to her Robert did not take the +matter quite rightly. + +'After all, darling,' he said at last, kissing her, 'you can act dragon +splendidly; you have already--so can I. And you really cannot make me +believe in anything very tragic in a week.' + +But Catherine was conscious that she had already played the dragon hard, +to very little purpose. In the forty hours that intervened between the +scene in the garden and the squire's dinner-party, Robert was always +wanting to carry off Langham, Catherine was always asking Rose's help in +some household business or other. In vain. Langham said to himself +calmly, this time, that Elsmere and his wife were making a foolish +mistake in supposing that his friendship with Miss Leyburn was anything +to be alarmed about, that they would soon be amply convinced of it +themselves, and meanwhile he should take his own way. And as for Rose, +they had no sooner turned back all three from the house to the garden +than she had divined everything in Catherine's mind, and set herself +against her sister with a wilful force in which many a past irritation +found expression. + +How Catherine hated the music of that week! It seemed to her she never +opened the drawing-room door but she saw Langham at the piano, his head +with its crown of glossy, curling black hair, and his eyes lit with +unwonted gleams of laughter and sympathy, turned towards Rose, who was +either chatting wildly to him, mimicking the airs of some professional, +or taking off the ways of some famous teacher; or else, which was worse, +playing with all her soul, flooding the house with sound--now as soft +and delicate as first love, now as full and grand as storm waves on an +angry coast. And the sister going with compressed lip to her work-table +would recognise sorely that never had the girl looked so handsome, and +never had the lightnings of a wayward genius played so finely about her. + +As to Langham, it may well be believed that after the scene in the +garden he had rated, satirised, examined himself in the most approved +introspective style. One half of him declared that scene to have been +the heights of melodramatic absurdity; the other thought of it with a +thrill of tender gratitude towards the young pitiful creature who had +evoked it. After all, why, because he was alone in the world and must +remain so, should he feel bound to refuse this one gift of the gods, the +delicate passing gift of a girl's--a child's friendship? As for her, the +man's very real, though wholly morbid, modesty scouted the notion of +love on her side. _He_ was a likely person for a beauty on the threshold +of life and success to fall in love with; but she meant to be kind to +him, and he smiled a little inward indulgent smile over her very evident +compassion, her very evident intention of reforming him, reconciling him +to life. And, finally, he was incapable of any further resistance. He +had gone too far with her. Let her do what she would with him, dear +child, with the sharp tongue and the soft heart, and the touch of genius +and brilliancy which made her future so interesting! He called his age +and his disillusions to the rescue; he posed to himself as stooping to +her in some sort of elder-brotherly fashion; and if every now and then +some disturbing memory of that strange scene between them would come to +make his present role less plausible, or some whim of hers made it +difficult to play, why then at bottom there was always the consciousness +that sixty hours, or thereabouts, would see him safely settled in that +morning train to London. Throughout it is probable that that morning +train occupied the saving background of his thoughts. + +The two days passed by, and the squire's dinner-party arrived. About +seven on the Thursday evening a party of four might have been seen +hurrying across the park--Langham and Catherine in front, Elsmere and +Rose behind. Catherine had arranged it so, and Langham, who understood +perfectly that his friendship with her young sister was not at all to +Mrs. Elsmere's taste, and who had by now taken as much of a dislike to +her as his nature was capable of, was certainly doing nothing to make +his walk with her otherwise than difficult. And every now and then some +languid epigram would bring Catherine's eyes on him with a fiery gleam +in their gray depths. Oh, fourteen more hours and she would have shut +the rectory gate on this most unwelcome of intruders! She had never +felt so vindictively anxious to see the last of any one in her life. +There was in her a vehemence of antagonism to the man's manner, his +pessimism, his infidelity, his very ways of speaking and looking, which +astonished even herself. + +Robert's eager soul meanwhile, for once irresponsive to Catherine's, was +full of nothing but the squire. At last the moment was come, and that +dumb spiritual friendship he had formed through these long months with +the philosopher and the savant was to be tested by sight and speech of +the man. He bade himself a hundred times pitch his expectations low. But +curiosity and hope were keen, in spite of everything. + +Ah, those parish worries! Robert caught the smoke of Mile End in the +distance, curling above the twilight woods, and laid about him +vigorously with his stick on the squire's shrubs, as he thought of those +poisonous hovels, those ruined lives! But, after all, it might be mere +ignorance, and that wretch Henslowe might have been merely trading on +his master's morbid love of solitude. + +And then--all men have their natural conceits. Robert Elsmere would not +have been the very human creature he was if, half-consciously, he had +not counted a good deal on his own powers of influence. Life had been to +him so far one long social success of the best kind. Very likely as he +walked on to the great house over whose threshold lay the answer to the +enigma of months, his mind gradually filled with some naive young dream +of winning the squire, playing him with all sorts of honest arts, +beguiling him back to life--to his kind. + +Those friendly messages of his through Mrs. Darcy had been very +pleasant. + +'I wonder whether my Oxford friends have been doing me a good turn with +the squire,' he said to Rose, laughing. 'He knows the provost, of +course. If they talked me over it is to be hoped my scholarship didn't +come up. Precious little the provost used to think of my abilities for +Greek prose!' + +Rose yawned a little behind her gloved hand. Robert had already talked a +good deal about the squire, and he was certainly the only person in the +group who was thinking of him. Even Catherine, absorbed in other +anxieties, had forgotten to feel any thrill at their approaching +introduction to the man who must of necessity mean so much to herself +and Robert. + + * * * * * + +'Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elsmere,' said the butler, throwing open the carved +and gilded doors. + +Catherine--following her husband, her fine grave head and beautiful neck +held a little more erect than usual--was at first conscious of nothing +but the dazzle of western light which flooded the room, striking the +stands of Japanese lilies, and the white figure of a clown in the famous +Watteau opposite the window. + +Then she found herself greeted by Mrs. Darcy, whose odd habit of holding +her lace handkerchief in her right hand on festive occasions only left +her two fingers for her guests. The mistress of the Hall--as diminutive +and elf-like as ever in spite of the added dignity of her sweeping silk +and the draperies of black lace with which her tiny head was +adorned--kept tight hold of Catherine, and called a gentleman standing +in a group just behind her. + +'Roger, here are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elsmere. Mr. Elsmere, the squire +remembers you in petticoats, and I'm not sure that I don't too.' + +Robert, smiling, looked beyond her to the advancing figure of the +squire, but if Mr. Wendover heard his sister's remark he took no notice +of it. He held out his hand stiffly to Robert, bowed to Catherine and +Rose before extending to them the same formal greeting, and just +recognised Langham as having met him at Oxford. + +Having done so he turned back to the knot of people with whom he had +been engaged on their entrance. His manner had been reserve itself. The +_hauteur_ of the grandee on his own ground was clearly marked in it, and +Robert could not help fancying that towards himself there had even been +something more. And not one of those phrases which, under the +circumstances, would have been so easy and so gracious, as to Robert's +childish connection with the place, or as to the squire's remembrance of +his father, even though Mrs. Darcy had given him a special opening of +the kind. + +The young rector instinctively drew himself together, like one who has +received a blow, as he moved across to the other side of the fireplace +to shake hands with the worthy family doctor, old Meyrick, who was +already well known to him. Catherine, in some discomfort, for she too +had felt their reception at the squire's hands to be a chilling one, sat +down to talk to Mrs. Darcy, disagreeably conscious the while that Rose +and Langham left to themselves were practically _tete-a-tete_, and that, +moreover, a large stand of flowers formed a partial screen between her +and them. She could see, however, the gleam of Rose's upstretched neck, +as Langham, who was leaning on the piano beside her, bent down to talk +to her; and when she looked next she caught a smiling motion of +Langham's head and eyes towards the Romney portrait of Mr. Wendover's +grandmother, and was certain when he stooped afterwards to say something +to his companion, that he was commenting on a certain surface likeness +there was between her and the young auburn-haired beauty of the picture. +Hateful! And they would be sent down to dinner together to a certainty. + +The other guests were Lady Charlotte Wynnstay, a cousin of the squire--a +tall, imperious, loud-voiced woman, famous in London society for her +relationships, her audacity, and the _salon_ which in one way or another +she managed to collect round her; her dark, thin, irritable-looking +husband; two neighbouring clerics--the first, by name Longstaffe, a +somewhat inferior specimen of the cloth, whom Robert cordially disliked; +and the other, Mr. Bickerton, a gentle Evangelical, one of those men who +help to ease the harshness of a cross-grained world, and to reconcile +the cleverer or more impatient folk in it to the worries of living. + +Lady Charlotte was already known by name to the Elsmeres as the aunt of +one of their chief friends of the neighbourhood--the wife of a +neighbouring squire whose property joined that of Murewell Hall, one +Lady Helen Varley, of whom more presently. Lady Charlotte was the sister +of the Duke of Sedbergh, one of the greatest of dukes, and the sister +also of Lady Helen's mother, Lady Wanless. Lady Wanless had died +prematurely, and her two younger children, Helen and Hugh Flaxman, +creatures both of them of unusually fine and fiery quality, had owed a +good deal to their aunt. There were family alliances between the +Sedberghs and the Wendovers, and Lady Charlotte made a point of keeping +up with the squire. She adored cynics and people who said piquant +things, and it amused her to make her large tyrannous hand felt by the +squire's timid, crack-brained, ridiculous little sister. + +As to Dr. Meyrick, he was tall and gaunt as Don Quixote. His gray hair +made a ragged fringe round his straight-backed head; he wore an +old-fashioned neck-cloth; his long body had a perpetual stoop, as though +of deference, and his spectacled look of mild attentiveness had nothing +in common with that medical self-assurance with which we are all +nowadays so familiar. Robert noticed presently that when he addressed +Mrs. Darcy he said 'Ma'am,' making no bones at all about it; and his +manner generally was the manner of one to whom class distinctions were +the profoundest reality, and no burden at all on a naturally humble +temper. Dr. Baker, of Whindale, accustomed to trouncing Mrs. Seaton, +would have thought him a poor creature. + +When dinner was announced, Robert found himself assigned to Mrs. Darcy; +the squire took Lady Charlotte. Catherine fell to Mr. Bickerton, Rose to +Mr. Wynnstay, and the rest found their way in as best they could. +Catherine seeing the distribution was happy for a moment, till she found +that if Rose was covered on her right she was exposed to the full fire +of the enemy on her left, in other words that Langham was placed between +her and Dr. Meyrick. + +'Are your spirits damped at all by this magnificence?' Langham said to +his neighbour as they sat down. The table was entirely covered with +Japanese lilies, save for the splendid silver candelabra from which the +light flashed, first on to the faces of the guests, and then on to those +of the family portraits, hung thickly round the room. A roof embossed +with gilded Tudor roses on a ground of black oak hung above them; a +rose-water dish in which the Merry Monarch had once dipped his hands, +and which bore a record of the fact in the inscription on its sides, +stood before them; and the servants were distributing to each guest +silver soup-plates which had been the gift of Sarah, Duchess of +Marlborough, in some moment of generosity or calculation, to the +Wendover of her day. + +'Oh dear, no!' said Rose carelessly. 'I don't know how it is, I think I +must have been born for a palace.' + +Langham looked at her, at the daring harmony of colour made by the +reddish gold of her hair, the warm whiteness of her skin, and the +brown-pink tints of her dress, at the crystals playing the part of +diamonds on her beautiful neck, and remembered Robert's remarks to him. +The same irony mingled with the same bitterness returned to him, and the +elder brother's attitude became once more temporarily difficult. 'Who is +your neighbour?' he inquired of her presently. + +'Lady Charlotte's husband,' she answered mischievously, under her +breath. 'One needn't know much more about him I imagine!' + +'And that man opposite?' + +'Robert's pet aversion,' she said calmly, without a change of +countenance, so that Mr. Longstaffe opposite, who was studying her as he +always studied pretty young women, stared at her through her remark in +sublime ignorance of its bearing. + +'And your sister's neighbour?' + +'I can't hit him off in a sentence, he's too good!' said Rose laughing; +'all I can say is that Mrs. Bickerton has too many children, and the +children have too many ailments for her ever to dine out.' + +'That will do; I see the existence,' said Langham with a shrug. 'But he +has the look of an apostle, though a rather hunted one. Probably nobody +here, except Robert, is fit to tie his shoes.' + +'The squire could hardly be called _empresse_,' said Rose, after a +second, with a curl of her red lips. Mr. Wynnstay was still safely +engaged with Mrs. Darcy, and there was a buzz of talk largely sustained +by Lady Charlotte. + +'No,' Langham admitted; 'the manners I thought were not quite equal to +the house.' + +'What possible reason could he have for treating Robert with those +airs?' said Rose indignantly, ready enough in girl fashion to defend her +belongings against the outer world. 'He ought to be only too glad to +have the opportunity of knowing him and making friends with him.' + +'You are a sister worth having;' and Langham smiled at her as she leant +back in her chair, her white arms and wrists lying on her lap, and her +slightly flushed face turned towards him. They had been on these +pleasant terms of _camaraderie_ all day, and the intimacy between them +had been still making strides. + +'Do you imagine I don't appreciate Robert because I make bad jokes +about the choir and the clothing club?' she asked him, with a little +quick repentance passing like a shadow through her eyes. 'I always feel +I play an odious part here. I can't like it--I can't--their life. I +should hate it! And yet----' + +She sighed remorsefully, and Langham, who five minutes before could have +wished her to be always smiling, could now have almost asked to fix her +as she was: the eyes veiled, the soft lips relaxed in this passing +instant of gravity. + +'Ah! I forgot--' and she looked up again with light bewitching +appeal--'there is still that question, my poor little question of Sunday +night, when I was in that fine moral frame of mind and you were near +giving me, I believe, the only good advice you ever gave in your +life,--how shamefully you have treated it!' + +One brilliant look, which Catherine for her torment caught from the +other side of the table, and then in an instant the quick face changed +and stiffened. Mr. Wynnstay was speaking to her, and Langham was left to +the intermittent mercies of Dr. Meyrick, who though glad to talk, was +also quite content, apparently, to judge from the radiant placidity of +his look, to examine his wine, study his _menu_, and enjoy his +_entrees_ in silence, undisturbed by the uncertain pleasures of +conversation. + +Robert, meanwhile, during the first few minutes, in which Mr. Wynnstay +had been engaged in some family talk with Mrs. Darcy, had been allowing +himself a little deliberate study of Mr. Wendover across what seemed the +safe distance of a long table. The squire was talking shortly and +abruptly, yet with occasional flashes of shrill ungainly laughter, to +Lady Charlotte, who seemed to have no sort of fear of him and to find +him good company, and every now and then Robert saw him turn to +Catherine on the other side of him, and with an obvious change of manner +address some formal and constrained remark to her. + +Mr. Wendover was a man of middle height and loose bony frame, of which, +as Robert had noticed in the drawing-room, all the lower half had a thin +and shrunken look. But the shoulders, which had the scholar's stoop, and +the head were massive and squarely outlined. The head was specially +remarkable for its great breadth and comparative flatness above the +eyes, and for the way in which the head itself dwarfed the face, which, +as contrasted with the large angularity of the skull, had a pinched and +drawn look. The hair was reddish-gray, the eyes small, but deep-set +under fine brows, and the thin-lipped wrinkled mouth and long chin had a +look of hard sarcastic strength. + +Generally the countenance was that of an old man, the furrows were deep, +the skin brown and shrivelled. But the alertness and force of the man's +whole expression showed that, if the body was beginning to fail, the +mind was as fresh and masterful as ever. His hair, worn rather longer +than usual, his loosely-fitting dress and slouching carriage gave him an +un-English look. In general he impressed Robert as a sort of curious +combination of the foreign _savant_ with the English grandee, for while +his manner showed a considerable consciousness of birth and social +importance, the gulf between him and the ordinary English country +gentleman could hardly have been greater, whether in points of +appearance or, as Robert very well knew, in points of social conduct. +And as Robert watched him, his thoughts flew back again to the library, +to this man's past, to all that those eyes had seen and those hands had +touched. He felt already a mysterious, almost a yearning, sense of +acquaintance with the being who had just received him with such +chilling, such unexpected, indifference. + +The squire's manners, no doubt, were notorious, but even so, his +reception of the new rector of the parish, the son of a man intimately +connected for years with the place, and with his father, and to whom he +had himself shown what was for him considerable civility by letter and +message, was sufficiently startling. + +Robert, however, had no time to speculate on the causes of it, for Mrs. +Darcy, released from Mr. Wynnstay, threw herself with glee on to her +longed-for prey, the young and interesting-looking rector. First of all +she cross-examined him as to his literary employments, and when by dint +of much questioning she had forced particulars from him, Robert's mouth +twitched as he watched her scuttling away from the subject, seized +evidently with internal terrors lest she should have precipitated +herself beyond hope of rescue into the jaws of the sixth century. Then +with a view to regaining the lead and opening another and more promising +vein, she asked him his opinion of Lady Selden's last novel, _Love in a +Marsh_; and when he confessed ignorance she paused a moment, fork in +hand, her small wrinkled face looking almost as bewildered as when, +three minutes before, her rashness had well-nigh brought her face to +face with Gregory of Tours as a topic of conversation. + +But she was not daunted long. With little airs and bridlings infinitely +diverting, she exchanged inquiry for the most beguiling confidence. She +could appreciate 'clever men,' she said, for she--she too--was literary. +Did Mr. Elsmere know--this in a hurried whisper, with sidelong glances +to see that Mr. Wynnstay was safely occupied with Rose, and the squire +with Lady Charlotte--that she had once _written a novel_? + +Robert, who had been posted up in many things concerning the +neighbourhood by Lady Helen Varley, could answer most truly that he had. +Whereupon Mrs. Darcy beamed all over. + +'Ah! but you haven't read it,' she said regretfully. 'It was when I was +Maid of Honour, you know. No Maid of Honour had ever written a novel +before. It was quite an event. Dear Prince Albert borrowed a copy of me +one night to read in bed--I have it still, with the page turned down +where he left off.' She hesitated. 'It was only in the second chapter,' +she said at last with a fine truthfulness, 'but you know he was so busy, +all the Queen's work to do, of course, besides his own--poor man!' + +Robert implored her to lend him the work, and Mrs. Darcy, with blushes +which made her more weird than ever, consented. + +Then there was a pause, filled by an acid altercation between Lady +Charlotte and her husband, who had not found Rose as grateful for his +attentions as, in his opinion, a pink and white nobody at a country +dinner-party ought to be, and was glad of the diversion afforded him by +some aggressive remark of his wife. He and she differed on three main +points--politics; the decoration of their London house, Mr. Wynnstay +being a lover of Louis Quinze, and Lady Charlotte a preacher of Morris; +and the composition of their dinner-parties. Lady Charlotte, in the +pursuit of amusement and notoriety, was fond of flooding the domestic +hearth with all the people possessed of any sort of a name for any sort +of a reason in London. Mr. Wynnstay loathed such promiscuity; and the +company in which his wife compelled him to drink his wine had seriously +soured a small irritable Conservative with more family pride than either +nerves or digestion. + +During the whole passage of arms, Mrs. Darcy watched Elsmere, +cat-and-mouse fashion, with a further confidence burning within her, and +as soon as there was once more a general burst of talk, she pounced upon +him afresh. Would he like to know that after thirty years she had just +finished her _second_ novel, unbeknown to her brother--as she mentioned +him the little face darkened, took a strange bitterness--and it was just +about to be entrusted to the post and a publisher? + +Robert was all interest, of course, and inquired the subject. Mrs. Darcy +expanded still more--could, in fact, have hugged him. But, just as she +was launching into the plot a thought, apparently a scruple of +conscience, struck her. + +'Do you remember,' she began, looking at him a little darkly, askance, +'what I said about my hobbies the other day? Now, Mr. Elsmere, will you +tell me--don't mind me--don't be polite--have you ever heard people tell +stories of me? Have you ever, for instance, heard them call me +a--a--tuft-hunter?' + +'Never!' said Robert heartily. + +'They might,' she said, sighing. 'I _am_ a tuft-hunter. I can't help it. +And yet we _are_ a good family, you know. I suppose it was that year at +Court, and that horrid Warham afterwards. Twenty years in a cathedral +town--and a very _little_ cathedral town, after Windsor, and Buckingham +Palace, and dear Lord Melbourne! Every year I came up to town to stay +with my father for a month in the season, and if it hadn't been for +that I should have died--my husband knew I should. It was the world, +the flesh, and the devil, of course, but it couldn't be helped. But +now,' and she looked plaintively at her companion, as though challenging +him to a candid reply: 'You _would_ be more interesting, wouldn't you, +to tell the truth, if you had a handle to your name?' + +'Immeasurably,' cried Robert, stifling his laughter with immense +difficulty, as he saw she had no inclination to laugh. + +'Well, yes, you know. But it isn't right;' and again she sighed. 'And so +I have been writing this novel just for that. It is called--what do you +think?--"Mr. Jones." Mr. Jones is my hero--it's so good for me, you +know, to think about a Mr. Jones.' + +She looked beamingly at him. 'It must be indeed! Have you endowed him +with every virtue?' + +'Oh yes, and in the end, you know--' and she bent forward eagerly--'it +all comes right. His father didn't die in Brazil without children after +all, and the title----' + +'What!' cried Robert, 'so he _wasn't_ Mr. Jones?' + +Mrs. Darcy looked a little conscious. + +'Well, no,' she said guiltily, 'not just at the end. But it _really_ +doesn't matter--not to the story.' + +Robert shook his head, with a look of protest as admonitory as he could +make it, which evoked in her an answering expression of anxiety. But +just at that moment a loud wave of conversation and of laughter seemed +to sweep down upon them from the other end of the table, and their +little private eddy was effaced. The squire had been telling an +anecdote, and his clerical neighbours had been laughing at it. + +'Ah!' cried Mr. Longstaffe, throwing himself back in his chair with a +chuckle, 'that was an Archbishop worth having!' + +'A curious story,' said Mr. Bickerton, benevolently, the point of it, +however, to tell the truth, not being altogether clear to him. It seemed +to Robert that the squire's keen eye, as he sat looking down the table, +with his large nervous hands clasped before him, was specially fixed +upon himself. + +'May we hear the story?' he said, bending forward. Catherine, faintly +smiling in her corner beside the host, was looking a little flushed and +moved out of her ordinary quiet. + +'It is a story of Archbishop Manners Sutton,' said Mr. Wendover, in his +dry nasal voice. 'You probably know it, Mr. Elsmere. After Bishop +Heber's consecration to the See of Calcutta, it fell to the Archbishop +to make a valedictory speech, in the course of the luncheon at Lambeth +which followed the ceremony. "I have very little advice to give you as +to your future career," he said to the young bishop, "but all that +experience has given me I hand on to you. Place before your eyes two +precepts, and two only. One is, Preach the Gospel; and the other +is--_Put down enthusiasm!_"' + +There was a sudden gleam of steely animation in the squire's look as he +told his story, his eye all the while fixed on Robert. Robert divined in +a moment that the story had been re-told for his special benefit, and +that in some unexplained way the relations between him and the squire +were already biassed. He smiled a little with faint politeness, and +falling back into his place made no comment on the squire's anecdote. +Lady Charlotte's eyeglass, having adjusted itself for a moment to the +distant figure of the rector, with regard to whom she had been asking +Dr. Meyrick for particulars, quite unmindful of Catherine's +neighbourhood, turned back again towards the squire. + +'An unblushing old worldling, I should call your Archbishop,' she said +briskly. 'And a very good thing for him that he lived when he did. Our +modern good people would have dusted his apron for him.' + +Lady Charlotte prided herself on these vigorous forms of speech, and the +squire's neighbourhood generally called out an unusual crop of them. The +squire was still sitting with his hands on the table, his great brows +bent, surveying his guests. + +'Oh, of course all the sensible men are dead!' he said indifferently. +'But that is a pet saying of mine--the Church of England in a nutshell.' + +Robert flushed, and after a moment's hesitation bent forward. + +'What do you suppose,' he asked quietly, 'your Archbishop meant, Mr. +Wendover, by enthusiasm? Nonconformity, I imagine.' + +'Oh, very possibly!' and again Robert found the hawk-like glance +concentrated on himself. 'But I like to give his remark a much wider +extension. One may make it a maxim of general experience, and take it as +fitting all the fools with a mission who have teased our generation--all +your Kingsleys, and Maurices, and Ruskins--every one bent upon making +any sort of aimless commotion, which may serve him both as an investment +for the next world, and an advertisement for this.' + +'Upon my word, squire,' said Lady Charlotte, 'I hope you don't expect +Mr. Elsmere to agree with you?' + +Mr. Wendover made her a little bow. + +'I have very little sanguineness of any sort in my composition,' he said +drily. + +'I should like to know,' said Robert, taking no notice of this by-play; +'I should like to know, Mr. Wendover, leaving the Archbishop out of +count, what _you_ understand by this word enthusiasm in this maxim of +yours?' + +'An excellent manner,' thought Lady Charlotte, who, for all her +noisiness, was an extremely shrewd woman, 'an excellent manner and an +unprovoked attack.' + +Catherine's trained eye, however, had detected signs in Robert's look +and bearing which were lost on Lady Charlotte, and which made her look +nervously on. As to the rest of the table, they had all fallen to +watching the 'break' between the new rector and their host with a good +deal of curiosity. + +The squire paused a moment before replying,-- + +'It is not easy to put it tersely,' he said at last; 'but I may define +it, perhaps, as the mania for mending the roof of your right-hand +neighbour with straw torn off the roof of your left-hand neighbour; the +custom, in short, of robbing Peter to propitiate Paul.' + +'Precisely,' said Mr. Wynnstay warmly; 'all the ridiculous Radical +nostrums of the last fifty years--you have hit them off exactly. +Sometimes you rob more and propitiate less; sometimes you rob less and +propitiate more. But the principle is always the same.' And mindful of +all those intolerable evenings, when these same Radical nostrums had +been forced down his throat at his own table, he threw a pugnacious look +at his wife, who smiled back serenely in reply. There is small redress +indeed for these things, when out of the common household stock the wife +possesses most of the money, and a vast proportion of the brains. + +'And the cynic takes pleasure in observing,' interrupted the squire, +'that the man who effects the change of balance does it in the loftiest +manner, and profits in the vulgarest way. Other trades may fail. The +agitator is always sure of _his_ market.' + +He spoke with a harsh contemptuous insistence which was gradually +setting every nerve in Robert's body tingling. He bent forward again, +his long thin frame and boyish bright-complexioned face making an +effective contrast to the squire's bronzed and wrinkled squareness. + +'Oh, if you and Mr. Wynnstay are prepared to draw an indictment against +your generation and all its works, I have no more to say,' he said, +smiling still, though his voice had risen a little in spite of himself. +'I should be content to withdraw with my Burke into the majority. I +imagined your attack on enthusiasm had a narrower scope, but if it is to +be made synonymous with social progress I give up. The subject is too +big. Only----' + +He hesitated. Mr. Wynnstay was studying him with somewhat insolent +coolness; Lady Charlotte's eyeglass never wavered from his face, and he +felt through every fibre the tender timid admonitions of his wife's +eyes. + +'However,' he went on after an instant, 'I imagine that we should find +it difficult anyhow to discover common ground. I regard your +Archbishop's maxim, Mr. Wendover,' and his tone quickened and grew +louder, 'as first of all a contradiction in terms; and in the next +place, to me, almost all enthusiasms are respectable!' + +'You are one of those people, I see,' returned Mr. Wendover, after a +pause, with the same nasal emphasis and the same _hauteur_, 'who imagine +we owe civilisation to the heart; that mankind has _felt_ its +way--literally. The school of the majority, of course--I admit it amply. +I, on the other hand, am with the benighted minority who believe that +the world, so far as it has lived to any purpose, has lived by the +_head_,' and he flung the noun at Robert scornfully. 'But I am quite +aware that in a world of claptrap the philosopher gets all the kicks, +and the philanthropists, to give them their own label, all the +halfpence.' + +The impassive tone had gradually warmed to a heat which was +unmistakable. Lady Charlotte looked on with increasing relish. To her +all society was a comedy played for her entertainment, and she detected +something more dramatic than usual in the juxtaposition of these two +men. That young rector might be worth looking after. The dinners in +Martin Street were alarmingly in want of fresh blood. As for poor Mr. +Bickerton, he had begun to talk hastily to Catherine, with a sense of +something tumbling about his ears; while Mr. Longstaffe, eyeglass in +hand, surveyed the table with a distinct sense of pleasurable +entertainment. He had not seen much of Elsmere yet, but it was as clear +as daylight that the man was a firebrand, and should be kept in order. + +Meanwhile there was a pause between the two main disputants; the +storm-clouds were deepening outside, and rain had begun to patter on the +windows. Mrs. Darcy was just calling attention to the weather when the +squire unexpectedly returned to the charge. + +'The one necessary thing in life,' he said, turning to Lady Charlotte, a +slight irritating smile playing round his strong mouth, 'is--not to be +duped. Put too much faith in these fine things the altruists talk of, +and you arrive one day at the condition of Louis XIV. after the battle +of Ramillies: "Dieu a donc oublie tout ce que j'ai fait pour lui?" Read +your Renan; remind yourself at every turn that it is quite possible +after all the egotist _may_ turn out to be in the right of it, and you +will find at any rate that the world gets on excellently well without +your blundering efforts to set it straight. And so we get back to the +Archbishop's maxim--adapted, no doubt, to English requirements,' and he +shrugged his great shoulders expressively: '_Pace_ Mr. Elsmere, of +course, and the rest of our clerical friends!' + +Again he looked down the table, and the strident voice sounded harsher +than ever as it rose above the sudden noise of the storm outside. +Robert's bright eyes were fixed on the squire, and before Mr. Wendover +stopped Catherine could see the words of reply trembling on his lips. + +'I am well content,' he said, with a curious dry intensity of tone. 'I +give you your Renan. Only leave us poor dupes our illusions. We will not +quarrel with the division. With you all the cynics of history; with us +all the "scorners of the ground" from the world's beginning until now!' + +The squire make a quick impatient movement. Mr. Wynnstay looked +significantly at his wife, who dropped her eyeglass with a little +irrepressible smile. + +As for Robert, leaning forward with hastened breath, it seemed to him +that his eyes and the squire's crossed like swords. In Robert's mind +there had arisen a sudden passion of antagonism. Before his eyes there +was a vision of a child in a stifling room, struggling with mortal +disease, imposed upon her, as he hotly reminded himself, by this man's +culpable neglect. The dinner-party, the splendour of the room, the +conversation, excited a kind of disgust in him. If it were not for +Catherine's pale face opposite, he could hardly have maintained his +self-control. + +Mrs. Darcy, a little bewildered, and feeling that things were not going +particularly well, thought it best to interfere. + +'Roger,' she said plaintively, 'you must not be so philosophical. It's +too hot! He used to talk like that,' she went on, bending over to Mr. +Wynnstay, 'to the French priests who came to see us last winter in +Paris. They never minded a bit--they used to laugh. "Monsieur votre +frere, madame, c'est un homme qui a trop lu," they would say to me when +I gave them their coffee. Oh, they were such dears, those old priests! +Roger said they had great hopes of me.' + +The chatter was welcome, the conversation broke up. The squire turned to +Lady Charlotte, and Rose to Langham. + +'Why didn't you support Robert?' she said to him, impulsively, with a +dissatisfied face. 'He was alone, against the table!' + +'What good should I have done him?' he asked, with a shrug. 'And pray, +my lady confessor, what enthusiasms do you suspect me of?' + +He looked at her intently. It seemed to her they were by the gate +again--the touch of his lips on her hand. She turned from him hastily to +stoop for her fan which had slipped away. It was only Catherine who, for +her annoyance, saw the scarlet flush leap into the fair face. An instant +later Mrs. Darcy had given the signal. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +After dinner Lady Charlotte fixed herself at first on Catherine, whose +quiet dignity during the somewhat trying ordeal of the dinner had +impressed her, but a few minutes' talk produced in her the conviction +that without a good deal of pains--and why should a Londoner, accustomed +to the cream of things, take pains with a country clergyman's wife?--she +was not likely to get much out of her. Her appearance promised more, +Lady Charlotte thought, than her conversation justified, and she looked +about for easier game. + +'Are you Mr. Elsmere's sister?' said a loud voice over Rose's head; and +Rose, who had been turning over an illustrated book, with a mind wholly +detached from it, looked up to see Lady Charlotte's massive form +standing over her. + +'No, his sister-in-law,' said Rose, flushing in spite of herself, for +Lady Charlotte was distinctly formidable. + +'Hum,' said her questioner, depositing herself beside her. 'I never saw +two sisters more unlike. You have got a very argumentative +brother-in-law.' + +Rose said nothing, partly from awkwardness, partly from rising +antagonism. + +'Did you agree with him?' asked Lady Charlotte, putting up her glass and +remorselessly studying every detail of the pink dress, its ornaments, +and the slippered feet peeping out beneath it. + +'Entirely,' said Rose fearlessly, looking her full in the face. + +'And what can you know about it, I wonder? However, you are on the right +side. It is the fashion nowadays to have enthusiasms. I suppose you +muddle about among the poor like other people?' + +'I know nothing about the poor,' said Rose. + +'Oh, then, I suppose you feel yourself effective enough in some other +line?' said the other coolly. 'What is it--lawn tennis, or private +theatricals, or--hem--prettiness?' And again the eyeglass went up. + +'Whichever you like,' said Rose calmly, the scarlet on her cheek +deepening, while she resolutely reopened her book. The manner of the +other had quite effaced in her all that sense of obligation, as from the +young to the old, which she had been very carefully brought up in. Never +had she beheld such an extraordinary woman. + +'Don't read,' said Lady Charlotte complacently. 'Look at me. It's your +duty to talk to me, you know; and I won't make myself any more +disagreeable than I can help. I generally make myself disagreeable, and +yet, after all, there are a great many people who like me.' + +Rose turned a countenance rippling with suppressed laughter on her +companion. Lady Charlotte had a large fair face, with a great deal of +nose and chin, and an erection of lace and feathers on her head that +seemed in excellent keeping with the masterful emphasis of those +features. Her eyes stared frankly and unblushingly at the world, only +softened at intervals by the glasses which were so used as to make them +a most effective adjunct of her conversation. Socially, she was +absolutely devoid of weakness or of shame. She found society extremely +interesting, and she always struck straight for the desirable things in +it, making short work of all those delicate tentative processes of +acquaintanceship by which men and women ordinarily sort themselves. +Rose's brilliant vivacious beauty had caught her eye at dinner; she +adored beauty as she adored anything effective, and she always took a +queer pleasure in bullying her way into a girl's liking. It is a great +thing to be persuaded that at bottom you have a good heart. Lady +Charlotte was so persuaded, and allowed herself many things in +consequence. + +'What shall we talk about?' said Rose demurely. 'What a magnificent old +house this is!' + +'Stuff and nonsense! I don't want to talk about the house. I am sick to +death of it. And if your people live in the parish, you are too. I +return to my question. Come, tell me, what is your particular line in +life? I am sure you have one, by your face. You had better tell me; it +will do you no harm.' + +Lady Charlotte settled herself comfortably on the sofa, and Rose, seeing +that there was no chance of escaping her tormentor, felt her spirits +rise to an encounter. + +'Really--Lady Charlotte--' and she looked down, and then up, with a +feigned bashfulness--'I--I--play a little.' + +'Humph!' said her questioner again, rather disconcerted by the obvious +missishness of the answer. 'You do, do you? More's the pity. No woman +who respects herself ought to play the piano nowadays. A professional +told me the other day that until nineteen-twentieths of the profession +were strung up, there would be no chance for the rest; and as for +amateurs, there is simply _no_ room for them whatever. I can't conceive +anything more _passe_ than amateur pianoforte playing!' + +'I don't play the piano,' said Rose meekly. + +'What--the fashionable instrument, the banjo?' laughed Lady Charlotte. +'That would be really striking.' + +Rose was silent again, the corners of her mouth twitching. + +'Mrs. Darcy,' said her neighbour, raising her voice, 'this young lady +tells me she plays something; what is it?' + +Mrs. Darcy looked in a rather helpless way at Catherine. She was +dreadfully afraid of Lady Charlotte. + +Catherine, with a curious reluctance, gave the required information; and +then Lady Charlotte insisted that the violin should be sent for, as it +had not been brought. + +'Who accompanies you?' she inquired of Rose. + +'Mr. Langham plays very well,' said Rose indifferently. + +Lady Charlotte raised her eyebrows. 'That dark, Byronic-looking creature +who came with you? I should not have imagined him capable of anything +sociable. Letitia, shall I send my maid to the rectory, or can you spare +a man?' + +Mrs. Darcy hurriedly gave orders, and Rose, inwardly furious, was +obliged to submit. Then Lady Charlotte, having gained her point, and +secured a certain amount of diversion for the evening, lay back on the +sofa, used her fan, and yawned till the gentlemen appeared. + +When they came in, the precious violin which Rose never trusted to any +other hands but her own without trepidation had just arrived, and its +owner, more erect than usual, because more nervous, was trying to prop +up a dilapidated music-stand which Mrs. Darcy had unearthed for her. As +Langham came in, she looked up and beckoned to him. + +'Do you see?' she said to him impatiently, 'they have made me play. +Will you accompany me? I am very sorry, but there is no one else.' + +If there was one thing Langham loathed on his own account, it was any +sort of performance in public. But the half-plaintive look which +accompanied her last words showed that she knew it, and he did his best +to be amiable. + +'I am altogether at your service,' he said, sitting down with +resignation. + +'It is all that tiresome woman, Lady Charlotte Wynnstay,' she whispered +to him behind the music-stand. 'I never saw such a person in my life.' + +'Macaulay's Lady Holland without the brains,' suggested Langham with +languid vindictiveness as he gave her the note. + +Meanwhile Mr. Wynnstay and the squire sauntered in together. + +'A village Norman-Neruda?' whispered the guest to the host. The squire +shrugged his shoulders. + +'Hush!' said Lady Charlotte, looking severely at her husband. Mr. +Wynnstay's smile instantly disappeared; he leant against the doorway and +stared sulkily at the ceiling. Then the musicians began, on some +Hungarian melodies put together by a younger rival of Brahms. They had +not played twenty bars before the attention of every one in the room was +more or less seized--unless we except Mr. Bickerton, whose children, +good soul, were all down with some infantile ailment or other, and who +was employed in furtively watching the clock all the time to see when it +would be decent to order round the pony-carriage which would take him +back to his pale overweighted spouse. + +First came wild snatches of march music, primitive, savage, +non-European; then a waltz of the lightest, maddest rhythm, broken here +and there by strange barbaric clashes; then a song, plaintive and +clinging, rich in the subtlest shades and melancholies of modern +feeling. + +'Ah, but _excellent_!' said Lady Charlotte once, under her breath, at a +pause; 'and what _entrain_--what beauty!' + +For Rose's figure was standing thrown out against the dusky blue of the +tapestried walls, and from that delicate relief every curve, every +grace, each tint--hair and cheek and gleaming arm gained an enchanting +picture-like distinctness. There was jessamine at her waist and among +the gold of her hair; the crystals on her neck, and on the little shoe +thrown forward beyond her dress, caught the lamplight. + +'How can that man play with her and not fall in love with her?' thought +Lady Charlotte to herself, with a sigh, perhaps, for her own youth. 'He +looks cool enough, however; the typical don with his nose in the air!' + +Then the slow passionate sweetness of the music swept her away with it, +she being in her way a connoisseur, and she ceased to speculate. When +the sounds ceased there was silence for a moment. Mrs. Darcy, who had a +piano in her sitting-room whereon she strummed every morning with her +tiny rheumatic fingers, and who had, as we know, strange little veins of +sentiment running all about her, stared at Rose with open mouth. So did +Catherine. Perhaps it was then for the first time that, touched by this +publicity, this contagion of other people's feeling, Catherine realised +fully against what a depth of stream she had been building her useless +barriers. + +'More! more!' cried Lady Charlotte. + +The whole room seconded the demand save the squire and Mr. Bickerton. +They withdrew together into a distant oriel. Robert, who was delighted +with his little sister-in-law's success, went smiling to talk of it to +Mrs. Darcy, while Catherine with a gentle coldness answered Mr. +Longstaffe's questions on the same theme. + +'Shall we?' said Rose, panting a little, but radiant, looking down on +her companion. + +'Command me!' he said, his grave lips slightly smiling, his eyes taking +in the same vision that had charmed Lady Charlotte's. What a 'child of +grace and genius!' + +'But do you like it?' she persisted. + +'Like it--like accompanying your playing?' + +'Oh no!'--impatiently; 'showing off, I mean. I am quite ready to stop.' + +'Go on; go on!' he said, laying his finger on the A. 'You have driven +all my _mauvaise honte_ away. I have not heard you play so splendidly +yet.' + +She flushed all over. 'Then we will go on,' she said briefly. + +So they plunged again into an Andante and Scherzo of Beethoven. How the +girl threw herself into it, bringing out the wailing love-song of the +Andante, the dainty tripping mirth of the Scherzo, in a way which set +every nerve in Langham vibrating! Yet the art of it was wholly +unconscious. The music was the mere natural voice of her inmost self. A +comparison full of excitement was going on in that self between her +first impressions of the man beside her, and her consciousness of him, +as he seemed to-night, human, sympathetic, kind. A blissful sense of a +mission filled the young silly soul. Like David, she was pitting herself +and her gift against those dark powers which may invade and paralyse a +life. + +After the shouts of applause at the end had yielded to a burst of talk, +in the midst of which Lady Charlotte, with exquisite infelicity, might +have been heard laying down the law to Catherine as to how her sister's +remarkable musical powers might be best perfected, Langham turned to his +companion,-- + +'Do you know that for years I have enjoyed nothing so much as the music +of the last two days?' + +His black eyes shone upon her, transfused with something infinitely soft +and friendly. She smiled. 'How little I imagined that first evening that +you cared for music!' + +'Or about anything else worth caring for?' he asked her, laughing, but +with always that little melancholy note in the laugh. + +'Oh, if you like,' she said, with a shrug of her white shoulders. 'I +believe you talked to Catherine the whole of the first evening, when you +weren't reading _Hamlet_ in the corner, about the arrangements for +women's education at Oxford.' + +'Could I have found a more respectable subject?' he inquired of her. + +'The adjective is excellent,' she said with a little face, as she put +her violin into its case. 'If I remember right, Catherine and I felt it +personal. None of us were ever educated, except in arithmetic, sewing, +English history, the Catechism, and _Paradise Lost_. I taught myself +French at seventeen, because one Moliere wrote plays in it, and German +because of Wagner. But they are _my_ French and _my_ German. I wouldn't +advise anybody else to steal them!' + +Langham was silent, watching the movements of the girl's agile fingers. + +'I wonder,' he said at last, slowly, 'when I shall play that Beethoven +again?' + +'To-morrow morning if you have a conscience,' she said drily; 'we +murdered one or two passages in fine style.' + +He looked at her, startled. 'But I go by the morning train!' There was +an instant's silence. Then the violin case shut with a snap. + +'I thought it was to be Saturday,' she said abruptly. + +'No,' he answered with a sigh, 'it was always Friday. There is a meeting +in London I must get to to-morrow afternoon.' + +'Then we shan't finish these Hungarian duets,' she said slowly, turning +away from him to collect some music on the piano. + +Suddenly a sense of the difference between the week behind him, with all +its ups and downs, its quarrels, its _ennuis_, its moments of delightful +intimity, of artistic freedom and pleasure, and those threadbare +monotonous weeks into which he was to slip back on the morrow, awoke in +him a mad inconsequent sting of disgust, of self-pity. + +'No, we shall finish nothing,' he said in a voice which only she could +hear, his hands lying on the keys; 'there are some whose destiny it is +never to finish--never to have enough--to leave the feast on the table, +and all the edges of life ragged!' + +Her lips trembled. They were far away, in the vast room, from the group +Lady Charlotte was lecturing. Her nerves were all unsteady with music +and feeling, and the face looking down on him had grown pale. + +'We make our own destiny,' she said impatiently. '_We_ choose. It is all +our own doing. Perhaps destiny begins things--friendship, for instance; +but afterwards it is absurd to talk of anything but ourselves. We keep +our friends, our chances, our--our joys,' she went on hurriedly, trying +desperately to generalise, 'or we throw them away wilfully, because we +choose.' + +Their eyes were riveted on each other. + +'Not wilfully,' he said under his breath. 'But--no matter. May I take +you at your word, Miss Leyburn? Wretched shirker that I am, whom even +Robert's charity despairs of: have I made a friend? Can I keep her?' + +Extraordinary spell of the dark effeminate face--of its rare smile! The +girl forgot all pride, all discretion. 'Try,' she whispered, and as his +hand, stretching along the keyboard, instinctively felt for hers, for +one instant--and another, and another--she gave it to him. + + * * * * * + +'Albert, come here!' exclaimed Lady Charlotte, beckoning to her husband; +and Albert, though with a bad grace, obeyed. 'Just go and ask that girl +to come and talk to me, will you? Why on earth didn't you make friends +with her at dinner?' + +The husband made some irritable answer, and the wife laughed. + +'Just like you!' she said, with a good humour which seemed to him solely +caused by the fact of his non-success with the beauty at table. 'You +always expect to kill at the first stroke. I mean to take her in tow. Go +and bring her here.' + +Mr. Wynnstay sauntered off with as much dignity as his stature was +capable of. He found Rose tying up her music at one end of the piano, +while Langham was preparing to shut up the keyboard. + +There was something appeasing in the girl's handsomeness. Mr. Wynnstay +laid down his airs, paid her various compliments, and led her off to +Lady Charlotte. + +Langham stood by the piano, lost in a kind of miserable dream. Mrs. +Darcy fluttered up to him. + +'Oh, Mr. Langham, you play so _beautifully_! Do play a solo!' + +He subsided on to the music-bench obediently. On any ordinary occasion +tortures could not have induced him to perform in a room full of +strangers. He had far too lively and fastidious a sense of the futility +of the amateur. + +But he played--what, he knew not. Nobody listened but Mrs. Darcy, who +sat lost in an armchair a little way off, her tiny foot beating time. +Rose stopped talking, started, tried to listen. But Lady Charlotte had +had enough music, and so had Mr. Longstaffe, who was endeavouring to +joke himself into the good graces of the Duke of Sedbergh's sister. The +din of conversation rose at the challenge of the piano, and Langham was +soon overcrowded. + +Musically, it was perhaps as well, for the player's inward tumult was so +great, that what his hands did he hardly knew or cared. He felt himself +the greatest criminal unhung. Suddenly, through all that wilful mist of +epicurean feeling which had been enwrapping him, there had pierced a +sharp illumining beam from a girl's eyes aglow with joy, with hope, with +tenderness. In the name of Heaven, what had this growing degeneracy of +every moral muscle led him to now? What! smile and talk, and smile--and +be a villain all the time? What! encroach on a young life, like some +creeping parasitic growth, taking all, able to give nothing in +return--not even one genuine spark of genuine passion? Go philandering +on till a child of nineteen shows you her warm impulsive heart, play on +her imagination, on her pity, safe all the while in the reflection that +by the next day you will be far away, and her task and yours will be +alike to forget! He shrinks from himself as one shrinks from a man +capable of injuring anything weak and helpless. To despise the world's +social code, and then to fall conspicuously below its simplest articles; +to aim at being pure intelligence, pure open-eyed rationality, and not +even to succeed in being a gentleman, as the poor commonplace world +understands it! Oh, to fall at her feet, and ask her pardon before +parting for ever! But no--no more posing; no more dramatising. How can +he get away most quietly--make least sign? The thought of that walk home +in the darkness fills him with a passion of irritable impatience. + + * * * * * + +'Look at that Romney, Mr. Elsmere; just look at it!' cried Dr. Meyrick +excitedly; 'did you ever see anything finer? There was one of those +London dealer fellows down here last summer offered the squire four +thousand pounds down on the nail for it.' + +In this way Meyrick had been taking Robert round the drawing-room, doing +the honours of every stick and stone in it, his eyeglass in his eye, his +thin old face shining with pride over the Wendover possessions. And so +the two gradually neared the oriel where the squire and Mr. Bickerton +were standing. + +Robert was in twenty minds as to any further conversation with the +squire. After the ladies had gone, while every nerve in him was still +tingling with anger, he had done his best to keep up indifferent talk on +local matters with Mr. Bickerton. Inwardly he was asking himself whether +he should ever sit at the squire's table and eat his bread again. It +seemed to him that they had had a brush which would be difficult to +forget. And as he sat there before the squire's wine, hot with righteous +heat, all his grievances against the man and the landlord crowded upon +him. A fig for intellectual eminence if it make a man oppress his +inferiors and bully his equals! + +But as the minutes passed on, the rector had cooled down. The sweet, +placable, scrupulous nature began to blame itself. 'What, play your +cards so badly, give up the game so rashly, the very first round? +Nonsense! Patience and try again. There must be some cause in the +background. No need to be white-livered, but every need, in the case of +such a man as the squire, to take no hasty needless offence.' + +So he had cooled and cooled, and now here were Meyrick and he close to +the squire and his companion. The two men, as the rector approached, +were discussing some cases of common enclosure that had just taken place +in the neighbourhood. Robert listened a moment, then struck in. +Presently, when the chat dropped, he began to express to the squire his +pleasure in the use of the library. His manner was excellent, courtesy +itself, but without any trace of effusion. + +'I believe,' he said at last, smiling, 'my father used to be allowed the +same privileges. If so, it quite accounts for the way in which he clung +to Murewell.' + +'I had never the honour of Mr. Edward Elsmere's acquaintance,' said the +squire frigidly. 'During the time of his occupation of the rectory I was +not in England.' + +'I know. Do you still go much to Germany? Do you keep up your relations +with Berlin?' + +'I have not seen Berlin for fifteen years,' said the squire briefly, his +eyes in their wrinkled sockets fixed sharply on the man who ventured to +question him about himself, uninvited. There was an awkward pause. Then +the squire turned again to Mr. Bickerton. + +'Bickerton, have you noticed how many trees that storm of last February +has brought down at the north-east corner of the park?' + +Robert was inexpressibly galled by the movement, by the words +themselves. The squire had not yet addressed a single remark of any kind +about Murewell to _him_. There was a deliberate intention to exclude +implied in this appeal to the man who was not the man of the place, on +such a local point, which struck Robert very forcibly. + +He walked away to where his wife was sitting. + +'What time is it?' whispered Catherine, looking up at him. + +'Time to go,' he returned, smiling, but she caught the discomposure in +his tone and look at once, and her wifely heart rose against the squire. +She got up, drawing herself together with a gesture that became her. + +'Then let us go at once,' she said. 'Where is Rose?' + +A minute later there was a general leave-taking. Oddly enough it found +the squire in the midst of a conversation with Langham. As though to +show more clearly that it was the rector personally who was in his black +books, Mr. Wendover had already devoted some cold attention to Catherine +both at and after dinner, and he had no sooner routed Robert than he +moved in his slouching away across from Mr. Bickerton to Langham. And +now, another man altogether, he was talking and laughing--describing +apparently a reception at the French Academy--the epigrams flying, the +harsh face all lit up, the thin bony fingers gesticulating freely. + +The husband and wife exchanged glances as they stood waiting, while Lady +Charlotte, in her loudest voice, was commanding Rose to come and see her +in London any Thursday after the first of November. Robert was very +sore. Catherine passionately felt it, and forgetting everything but +him, longed to be out with him in the park comforting him. + +'What an absurd fuss you have been making about that girl,' Wynnstay +exclaimed to his wife as the Elsmere party left the room, the squire +conducting Catherine with a chill politeness. 'And now, I suppose, you +will be having her up in town, and making some young fellow who ought to +know better fall in love with her. I am told the father was a +grammar-school headmaster. Why can't you leave people where they +belong?' + +'I have already pointed out to you,' Lady Charlotte observed calmly, +'that the world has moved on since you were launched into it. I can't +keep up class-distinctions to please you; otherwise, no doubt, being the +devoted wife I am, I might try. However, my dear, we both have our +fancies. You collect Sevres china with or without a pedigree,' and she +coughed drily; 'I collect promising young women. On the whole, I think +my hobby is more beneficial to you than yours is profitable to me.' + +Mr. Wynnstay was furious. Only a week before he had been childishly, +shamefully taken in by a Jew curiosity-dealer from Vienna, to his wife's +huge amusement. If looks could have crushed her, Lady Charlotte would +have been crushed. But she was far too substantial as she lay back in +her chair, one large foot crossed over the other, and, as her husband +very well knew, the better man of the two. He walked away, murmuring +under his moustache words that would hardly have borne publicity, while +Lady Charlotte, through her glasses, made a minute study of a little +French portrait hanging some two yards from her. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile the Elsmere party were stepping out into the warm damp of the +night. The storm had died away, but a soft Scotch mist of rain filled +the air. Everything was dark, save for a few ghostly glimmerings through +the trees of the avenue; and there was a strong sweet smell of wet earth +and grass. Rose had drawn the hood of her waterproof over her head, and +her face gleamed an indistinct whiteness from its shelter. Oh this +leaping pulse--this bright glow of expectation! How had she made this +stupid blunder about his going? Oh, it was Catherine's mistake, of +course, at the beginning. But what matter? Here they were in the dark, +side by side, friends now, friends always. Catherine should not spoil +their last walk together. She felt a passionate trust that _he_ would +not allow it. + +'Wifie!' exclaimed Robert, drawing her a little apart, 'do you know it +has just occurred to me that, as I was going through the park this +afternoon by the lower footpath, I crossed Henslowe coming away from the +house. Of course this is what has happened! _He_ has told his story +first. No doubt just before I met him he had been giving the squire a +full and particular account--_a la_ Henslowe--of my proceedings since I +came. Henslowe lays it on thick--paints with a will. The squire +receives me afterwards as the meddlesome pragmatical priest he +understands me to be; puts his foot down to begin with; and, _hinc illae +lacrymae_. It's as clear as daylight! I thought that man had an odd twist +of the lip as he passed me.' + +'Then a disagreeable evening will be the worst of it,' said Catherine +proudly. 'I imagine, Robert, you can defend yourself against that bad +man?' + +'He has got the start; he has no scruples; and it remains to be seen +whether the squire has a heart to appeal to,' replied the young rector +with sore reflectiveness. 'Oh, Catherine, have you ever thought, wifie, +what a business it will be for us if I _can't_ make friends with that +man? Here we are at his gates--all our people in his power; the +_comfort_, at any rate, of our social life depending on him. And what a +strange, unmanageable, inexplicable being!' + +Elsmere sighed aloud. Like all quick imaginative natures he was easily +depressed, and the squire's sombre figure had for the moment darkened +his whole horizon. Catherine laid her cheek against his arm in the +darkness, consoling, remonstrating, every other thought lost in her +sympathy with Robert's worries. Langham and Rose slipped out of her +head; Elsmere's step had quickened, as it always did when he was +excited, and she kept up without thinking. + +When Langham found the others had shot ahead in the darkness, and he and +his neighbour were _tete-a-tete_, despair seized him. But for once he +showed a sort of dreary presence of mind. Suddenly, while the girl +beside him was floating in a golden dream of feeling, he plunged with a +stiff deliberation born of his inner conflict into a discussion of the +German system of musical training. Rose, startled, made some vague and +flippant reply. Langham pursued the matter. He had some information +about it, it appeared, garnered up in his mind, which might perhaps some +day prove useful to her. A St. Anselm's undergraduate, one Dashwood, an +old pupil of his, had been lately at Berlin for six months, studying at +the Conservatorium. Not long ago, being anxious to become a +schoolmaster, he had written to Langham for a testimonial. His letter +had contained a full account of his musical life. Langham proceeded to +recapitulate it. + +His careful and precise report of hours, fees, masters, and methods +lasted till they reached the park gate. He had the smallest powers of +social acting, and his role was dismally overdone. The girl beside him +could not know that he was really defending her from himself. His cold +altered manner merely seemed to her a sudden and marked withdrawal of +his petition for her friendship. No doubt she had received that petition +too effusively--and he wished there should be no mistake. + +What a young smarting soul went through in that half-mile of listening +is better guessed than analysed. There are certain moments of shame, +which only women know, and which seem to sting and burn out of youth all +its natural sweet self-love. A woman may outlive them, but never forget +them. If she pass through one at nineteen her cheek will grow hot over +it at seventy. Her companion's measured tone, the flow of deliberate +speech which came from him, the nervous aloofness of his attitude--every +detail in that walk seemed to Rose's excited sense an insult. + +As the park gate swung behind them she felt a sick longing for +Catherine's shelter. Then all the pride in her rushed to the rescue and +held that swooning dismay at the heart of her in check. And forthwith +she capped Langham's minute account of the scale-method of a famous +Berlin pianist by some witty stories of the latest London prodigy, a +child-violinist, incredibly gifted, dirty, and greedy, whom she had made +friends with in town. The girl's voice rang out sharp and hard under the +trees. Where, in fortune's name, were the lights of the rectory? Would +this nightmare never come to an end? + +At the rectory gate was Catherine waiting for them, her whole soul one +repentant alarm. + +'Mr. Langham, Robert has gone to the study; will you go and smoke with +him?' + +'By all means. Good-night, then, Mrs. Elsmere.' + +Catherine gave him her hand. Rose was trying hard to fit the lock of the +gate into the hasp, and had no hand free. Besides, he did not approach +her. + +'Good-night!' she said to him over her shoulder. + +'Oh, and Mr. Langham!' Catherine called after him as he strode away, +'will you settle with Robert about the carriage?' + +He turned, made a sound of assent, and went on. + +'When?' asked Rose lightly. + +'For the nine o'clock train.' + +'There should be a law against interfering with people's breakfast +hour,' said Rose; 'though, to be sure, a guest may as well get himself +gone early and be done with it. How you and Robert raced, Cathie! We did +our best to catch you up, but the pace was too good.' + +Was there a wild taunt, a spice of malice in the girl's reckless voice? +Catherine could not see her in the darkness, but the sister felt a +sudden trouble invade her. + +'Rose, darling, you are not tired?' + +'Oh dear, no! Good-night, sleep well. What a goose Mrs. Darcy is!' + +And, barely submitting to be kissed, Rose ran up the steps and upstairs. + +Langham and Robert smoked till midnight. Langham for the first time gave +Elsmere an outline of his plans for the future, and Robert, filled with +dismay at this final breach with Oxford and human society, and the only +form of practical life possible to such a man, threw himself into +protests more and more vigorous and affectionate. Langham listened to +them at first with sombre silence, then with an impatience which +gradually reduced Robert to a sore puffing at his pipe. There was a long +space during which they sat together, the ashes of the little fire +Robert had made dropping on the hearth, and not a word on either side. + +At last Elsmere could not bear it, and when midnight struck he sprang up +with an impatient shake of his long body, and Langham took the hint, +gave him a cold good-night, and went. + +As the door shut upon him Robert dropped back into his chair, and sat +on, his face in his hands, staring dolefully at the fire. It seemed to +him the world was going crookedly. A day on which a man of singularly +open and responsive temper makes a new enemy, and comes nearer than ever +before to losing an old friend, shows very blackly to him in the +calendar, and, by way of aggravation, Robert Elsmere says to himself at +once that somehow or other there must be fault of his own in the matter. + +Rose!--pshaw! Catherine little knows what stuff that cold intangible +soul is made of. + +Meanwhile, Langham was standing heavily, looking out into the night. The +different elements in the mountain of discomfort that weighed upon him +were so many that the weary mind made no attempt to analyse them. He had +a sense of disgrace, of having stabbed something gentle that had leant +upon him, mingled with a strong intermittent feeling of unutterable +relief. Perhaps his keenest regret was that, after all, it had not been +love! He had offered himself up to a girl's just contempt, but he had no +recompense in the shape of a great addition to knowledge, to experience. +Save for a few doubtful moments at the beginning, when he had all but +surprised himself in something more poignant, what he had been conscious +of had been nothing more than a suave and delicate charm of sentiment, a +subtle surrender to one exquisite aesthetic impression after another. And +these things in other relations the world had yielded him before. + +'Am I sane?' he muttered to himself. 'Have I ever been sane? Probably +not. The disproportion between my motives and other men's is too great +to be normal. Well, at least I am sane enough to shut myself up. Long +after that beautiful child has forgotten she ever saw me I shall still +be doing penance in the desert.' + +He threw himself down beside the open window with a groan. An hour later +he lifted a face blanched and lined, and stretched out his hand with +avidity towards a book on the table. It was an obscure and difficult +Greek text, and he spent the greater part of the night over it, +rekindling in himself with feverish haste the embers of his one lasting +passion. + +Meanwhile, in a room overhead, another last scene in this most futile of +dramas was passing. Rose, when she came in, had locked the door, torn +off her dress and her ornaments, and flung herself on the edge of the +bed, her hands on her knees, her shoulders drooping, a fierce red spot +on either cheek. There for an indefinite time she went through a torture +of self-scorn. The incidents of the week passed before her one by +one--her sallies, her defiances, her impulsive friendliness, the _elan_, +the happiness of the last two days, the self-abandonment of this +evening. Oh, intolerable--intolerable! + +And all to end with the intimation that she had been behaving like a +forward child--had gone too far and must be admonished--made to feel +accordingly! The poisoned arrow pierced deeper and deeper into the +girl's shrinking pride. The very foundations of self-respect seemed +overthrown. + +Suddenly her eye caught a dim and ghostly reflection of her own figure, +as she sat with locked hands on the edge of the bed, in a long glass +near, the only one of the kind which the rectory household possessed. +Rose sprang up, snatched at the candle, which was flickering in the air +of the open window, and stood erect before the glass, holding the candle +above her head. + +What the light showed her was a slim form in a white dressing-gown, that +fell loosely about it; a rounded arm upstretched; a head, still crowned +with its jessamine wreath, from which the bright hair fell heavily over +shoulders and bosom; eyes, under frowning brows, flashing a proud +challenge at what they saw; two lips, 'indifferent red,' just open to +let the quick breath come through--all thrown into the wildest +chiaroscuro by the wavering candle flame. + +Her challenge was answered. The fault was not there. Her arm dropped. +She put down the light. + +'I _am_ handsome,' she said to herself, her mouth quivering childishly. +'I am. I may say it to myself.' + +Then, standing by the window, she stared into the night. Her room, on +the opposite side of the house from Langham's, looked over the +cornfields and the distance. The stubbles gleamed faintly; the dark +woods, the clouds teased by the rising wind, sent a moaning voice to +greet her. + +'I hate him! I hate him!' she cried to the darkness, clenching her cold +little hand. + +Then presently she slipped on to her knees, and buried her head in the +bed-clothes. She was crying--angry stifled tears which had the hot +impatience of youth in them. It all seemed to her so untoward. This was +not the man she had dreamed of--the unknown of her inmost heart. _He_ +had been young, ardent, impetuous like herself. Hand in hand, eye +flashing into eye, pulse answering to pulse, they would have flung aside +the veil hanging over life and plundered the golden mysteries behind it. + +She rebels; she tries to see the cold alien nature which has laid this +paralysing spell upon her as it is, to reason herself back to peace--to +indifference. The poor child flies from her own half-understood +trouble; will none of it; murmurs again wildly-- + +'I hate him! I hate him! Cold-blooded--ungrateful--unkind!' + +In vain. A pair of melancholy eyes haunt, enthral her inmost soul. The +charm of the denied, the inaccessible is on her, womanlike. + +That old sense of capture, of helplessness, as of some lassoed +struggling creature, descended upon her. She lay sobbing there, trying +to recall what she had been a week before; the whirl of her London +visit, the ambitions with which it had filled her; the bewildering +many-coloured lights it had thrown upon life, the intoxicating sense of +artistic power. In vain. + + 'The stream will not flow, and the hills will not rise; + And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.' + +She felt herself bereft, despoiled. And yet through it all, as she lay +weeping, there came flooding a strange contradictory sense of growth, of +enrichment. In such moments of pain does a woman first begin to live? +Ah! why should it hurt so--this long-awaited birth of the soul? + + + + +BOOK III + +THE SQUIRE + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +The evening of the Murewell Hall dinner-party proved to be a date of +some importance in the lives of two or three persons. Rose was not +likely to forget it; Langham carried about with him the picture of the +great drawing-room, its stately light and shade, and its scattered +figures, through many a dismal subsequent hour; and to Robert it was the +beginning of a period of practical difficulties such as his fortunate +youth had never yet encountered. + +His conjecture had hit the mark. The squire's sentiments towards him, +which had been on the whole friendly enough, with the exception of a +slight _nuance_ of contempt provoked in Mr. Wendover's mind by all forms +of the clerical calling, had been completely transformed in the course +of the afternoon before the dinner-party, and transformed by the report +of his agent. Henslowe, who knew certain sides of the squire's character +by heart, had taken Time by the forelock. For fourteen years before +Robert entered the parish he had been king of it. Mr. Preston, Robert's +predecessor, had never given him a moment's trouble. The agent had +developed a habit of drinking, had favoured his friends and spited his +enemies, and had allowed certain distant portions of the estate to go +finely to ruin, quite undisturbed by any sentimental meddling of the +priestly sort. Then the old rector had been gathered to the majority, +and this long-legged busybody had taken his place, a man, according to +the agent, as full of communistical notions as an egg is full of meat, +and always ready to poke his nose into other people's business. And as +all men like mastery, but especially Scotchmen, and as during even the +first few months of the new rector's tenure of office it became +tolerably evident to Henslowe that young Elsmere would soon become the +ruling force of the neighbourhood unless measures were taken to prevent +it, the agent, over his nocturnal drams, had taken sharp and cunning +counsel with himself concerning the young man. + +The state of Mile End had been originally the result of indolence and +caprice on his part rather than of any set purpose of neglect. As soon, +however, as it was brought to his notice by Elsmere, who did it, to +begin with, in the friendliest way, it became a point of honour with +the agent to let the place go to the devil, nay, to hurry it there. For +some time notwithstanding, he avoided an open breach with the rector. He +met Elsmere's remonstrances by a more or less civil show of argument, +belied every now and then by the sarcasm of his coarse blue eye, and so +far the two men had kept outwardly on terms. Elsmere had reason to know +that on one or two occasions of difficulty in the parish Henslowe had +tried to do him a mischief. The attempts, however, had not greatly +succeeded, and their ill-success had probably excited in Elsmere a +confidence of ultimate victory which had tended to keep him cool in the +presence of Henslowe's hostility. But Henslowe had been all along merely +waiting for the squire. He had served the owner of the Murewell estate +for fourteen years, and if he did not know that owner's peculiarities by +this time, might he obtain certain warm corners in the next life to +which he was fond of consigning other people! It was not easy to cheat +the squire out of money, but it was quite easy to play upon his +ignorance of the details of English land management--ignorance +guaranteed by the learned habits of a lifetime--on his complete lack of +popular sympathy, and on the contempt felt by the disciple of Bismarck +and Mommsen for all forms of altruistic sentiment. The squire despised +priests. He hated philanthropic cants. Above all things he respected his +own leisure, and was abnormally, irritably sensitive as to any possible +inroads upon it. + +All these things Henslowe knew, and all these things he utilised. He saw +the squire within forty-eight hours of his arrival at Murewell. His +fancy picture of Robert and his doings was introduced with adroitness, +and coloured with great skill, and he left the squire walking up and +down his library, chafing alternately at the monstrous fate which had +planted this sentimental agitator at his gates, and at the memory of his +own misplaced civilities towards the intruder. In the evening those +civilities were abundantly avenged, as we have seen. + +Robert was much perplexed as to his next step. His heart was very sore. +The condition of Mile End--those gaunt-eyed women and wasted children, +all the sordid details of their unjust avoidable suffering weighed upon +his nerves perpetually. But he was conscious that this state of feeling +was one of tension, perhaps of exaggeration, and though it was +impossible he should let the matter alone, he was anxious to do nothing +rashly. + +However, two days after the dinner-party he met Henslowe on the hill +leading up to the rectory. Robert would have passed the man with a +stiffening of his tall figure and the slightest possible salutation. But +the agent, just returned from a round wherein the bars of various local +inns had played a conspicuous part, was in a truculent mood and stopped +to speak. He took up the line of insolent condolence with the rector on +the impossibility of carrying his wishes with regard to Mile End into +effect. They had been laid before the squire, of course, but the squire +had his own ideas and wasn't just easy to manage. + +'Seen him yet, sir?' Henslowe wound up jauntily, every line of his +flushed countenance, the full lips under the fair beard, and the light +prominent eyes, expressing a triumph he hardly cared to conceal. + +'I have seen him, but I have not talked to him on this particular +matter,' said the rector quietly, though the red mounted in his cheek. +'You may, however, be very sure, Mr. Henslowe, that everything I know +about Mile End the squire shall know before long.' + +'Oh, lor' bless me, sir!' cried Henslowe with a guffaw, 'it's all one to +me. And if the squire ain't satisfied with the way his work's done now, +why he can take you on as a second string, you know. You'd show us all, +I'll be bound, how to make the money fly.' + +Then Robert's temper gave way, and he turned upon the half-drunken brute +before him with a few home-truths delivered with a rapier-like force +which for the moment staggered Henslowe, who turned from red to purple. +The rector, with some of those pitiful memories of the hamlet, of which +we had glimpses in his talk with Langham, burning at his heart, felt the +man no better than a murderer, and as good as told him so. Then, without +giving him time to reply, Robert strode on, leaving Henslowe planted in +the pathway. But he was hardly up the hill before the agent, having +recovered himself by dint of copious expletives, was looking after him +with a grim chuckle. He knew his master, and he knew himself, and he +thought between them they would about manage to keep that young spark in +order. + +Robert meanwhile went straight home into his study, and there fell upon +ink and paper. What was the good of protracting the matter any longer? +Something must and should be done for these people, if not one way, then +another. + +So he wrote to the squire, showing the letter to Catherine when it was +done, lest there should be anything over-fierce in it. It was the simple +record of twelve months' experience told with dignity and strong +feeling. Henslowe was barely mentioned in it, and the chief burden of +the letter was to implore the squire to come and inspect certain +portions of his property with his own eyes. The rector would be at his +service any day or hour. + +Husband and wife went anxiously through the document, softening here, +improving there, and then it was sent to the Hall. Robert waited +nervously through the day for an answer. In the evening, while he and +Catherine were in the footpath after dinner, watching a chilly autumnal +moonrise over the stubbles of the cornfield, the answer came. + +'H'm,' said Robert dubiously as he opened it, holding it up to the +moonlight; 'can't be said to be lengthy.' + +He and Catherine hurried into the house. Robert read the letter, and +handed it to her without a word. + +After some curt references to one or two miscellaneous points raised in +the latter part of the rector's letter, the squire wound up as +follows:-- + + 'As for the bulk of your communication, I am at a loss to + understand the vehemence of your remarks on the subject of my Mile + End property. My agent informed me shortly after my return home + that you had been concerning yourself greatly, and, as he + conceived, unnecessarily about the matter. Allow me to assure you + that I have full confidence in Mr. Henslowe, who has been in the + district for as many years as you have spent months in it, and + whose authority on points connected with the business management of + my estate naturally carries more weight with me, if you will permit + me to say so, than your own.--I am, sir, your obedient servant, + + 'ROGER WENDOVER.' + +Catherine returned the letter to her husband with a look of dismay. He +was standing with his back to the chimney-piece, his hands thrust far +into his pockets, his upper lip quivering. In his happy expansive life +this was the sharpest personal rebuff that had ever happened to him. He +could not but smart under it. + +'Not a word,' he said, tossing his hair back impetuously, as Catherine +stood opposite watching him--'not one single word about the miserable +people themselves! What kind of stuff can the man be made off?' + +'Does he believe you?' asked Catherine, bewildered. + +'If not, one must try and make him,' he said energetically, after a +moment's pause. 'To-morrow, Catherine, I go down to the Hall and see +him.' + +She quietly acquiesced, and the following afternoon, first thing after +luncheon, she watched him go, her tender inspiring look dwelling with +him as he crossed the park, which was lying delicately wrapped in one of +the whitest of autumnal mists, the sun just playing through it with pale +invading shafts. + +The butler looked at him with some doubtfulness. It was never safe to +admit visitors for the squire without orders. But he and Robert had +special relations. As the possessor of a bass voice worthy of his girth, +Vincent, under Robert's rule, had become the pillar of the choir, and it +was not easy for him to refuse the rector. + +So Robert was led in, through the hall, and down the long passage to the +curtained door, which he knew so well. + +'Mr. Elsmere, sir!' + +There was a sudden hasty movement. Robert passed a magnificent lacquered +screen newly placed round the door, and found himself in the squire's +presence. + +The squire had half risen from his seat in a capacious chair, with a +litter of books round it, and confronted his visitor with a look of +surprised annoyance. The figure of the rector, tall, thin, and youthful, +stood out against the delicate browns and whites of the book-lined +walls. The great room, so impressively bare when Robert and Langham had +last seen it, was now full of the signs of a busy man's constant +habitation. An odour of smoke pervaded it; the table in the window was +piled with books just unpacked, and the half-emptied case from which +they had been taken lay on the ground beside the squire's chair. + +'I persuaded Vincent to admit me, Mr. Wendover,' said Robert, advancing +hat in hand, while the squire hastily put down the German professor's +pipe he had just been enjoying, and coldly accepted his proffered +greeting. 'I should have preferred not to disturb you without an +appointment, but after your letter it seemed to me some prompt personal +explanation was necessary.' + +The squire stiffly motioned towards a chair, which Robert took, and then +slipped back into his own, his wrinkled eyes fixed on the intruder. + +Robert, conscious of almost intolerable embarrassment, but maintaining +in spite of it an excellent degree of self-control, plunged at once into +business. He took the letter he had just received from the squire as a +text, made a good-humoured defence of his own proceedings, described his +attempt to move Henslowe, and the reluctance of his appeal from the man +to the master. The few things he allowed himself to say about Henslowe +were in perfect temper, though by no means without an edge. + +Then, having disposed of the more personal aspects of the matter, he +paused, and looked hesitatingly at the face opposite him, more like a +bronzed mask at this moment than a human countenance. The squire, +however, gave him no help. He had received his remarks so far in perfect +silence, and seeing that there were more to come, he waited for them +with the same rigidity of look and attitude. + +So, after a moment or two, Robert went on to describe in detail some of +those individual cases of hardship and disease at Mile End, during the +preceding year, which could be most clearly laid to the sanitary +condition of the place. Filth, damp, leaking roofs, foul floors, +poisoned water--he traced to each some ghastly human ill, telling his +stories with a nervous brevity, a suppressed fire, which would have +burnt them into the sense of almost any other listener. Not one of these +woes but he and Catherine had tended with sickening pity and labour of +body and mind. That side of it he kept rigidly out of sight. But all +that he could hurl against the squire's feeling, as it were, he gathered +up, strangely conscious through it all of his own young persistent +yearning to right himself with this man, whose mental history, as it +lay chronicled in these rooms, had been to him, at a time of +intellectual hunger, so stimulating, so enriching. + +But passion and reticence and hidden sympathy were alike lost upon the +squire. Before he paused Mr. Wendover had already risen restlessly from +his chair, and from the rug was glowering down on his unwelcome visitor. + +Good heavens! had he come home to be lectured in his own library by this +fanatical slip of a parson? As for his stories, the squire barely took +the trouble to listen to them. + +Every popularity-hunting fool, with a passion for putting his hand into +other people's pockets, can tell pathetic stories; but it was +intolerable that his scholar's privacy should be at the mercy of one of +the tribe. + +'Mr. Elsmere,' he broke out at last with contemptuous emphasis, 'I +imagine it would have been better--infinitely better--to have spared +both yourself and me the disagreeables of this interview. However, I am +not sorry we should understand each other. I have lived a life which is +at least double the length of yours in very tolerable peace and comfort. +The world has been good enough for me, and I for it, so far. I have been +master in my own estate, and intend to remain so. As for the new-fangled +ideas of a landowner's duty, with which your mind seems to be full'--the +scornful irritation of the tone was unmistakable--'I have never dabbled +in them, nor do I intend to begin now. I am like the rest of my kind; I +have no money to chuck away in building schemes, in order that the +rector of the parish may pose as the apostle of the agricultural +labourer. That, however, is neither here nor there. What is to the +purpose is, that my business affairs are in the hands of a business man, +deliberately chosen and approved by me, and that I have nothing to do +with them. Nothing at all!' he repeated with emphasis. 'It may seem to +you very shocking. You may regard it as the object in life of the +English landowner to inspect the pigstyes and amend the habits of the +English labourer. I don't quarrel with the conception, I only ask you +not to expect me to live up to it. I am a student first and foremost, +and desire to be left to my books. Mr. Henslowe is there on purpose to +protect my literary freedom. What he thinks desirable is good enough for +me, as I have already informed you. I am sorry for it if his methods do +not commend themselves to you. But I have yet to learn that the rector +of the parish has an ex-officio right to interfere between a landlord +and his tenants.' + +Robert kept his temper with some difficulty. After a pause he said, +feeling desperately, however, that the suggestion was not likely to +improve matters,-- + +'If I were to take all the trouble and all the expense off your hands, +Mr. Wendover, would it be impossible for you to authorise me to make one +or two alterations most urgently necessary for the improvement of the +Mile End cottages?' + +The squire burst into an angry laugh. + +'I have never yet been in the habit, Mr. Elsmere, of doing my repairs by +public subscription. You ask a little too much from an old man's powers +of adaptation.' + +Robert rose from his seat, his hand trembling as it rested on his +walking-stick. + +'Mr. Wendover,' he said, speaking at last with a flash of answering +scorn in his young vibrating voice, 'what I think you cannot understand +is that at any moment a human creature may sicken and die, poisoned by +the state of your property, for which you--and nobody else--are +ultimately responsible.' + +The squire shrugged his shoulders. + +'So you say, Mr. Elsmere. If true, every person in such a condition has +a remedy in his own hands. I force no one to remain on my property.' + +'The people who live there,' exclaimed Robert, 'have neither home nor +subsistence if they are driven out. Murewell is full--times bad--most of +the people old.' + +'And eviction "a sentence of death," I suppose, 'interrupted the squire, +studying him with sarcastic eyes. 'Well, I have no belief in a +Gladstonian Ireland, still less in a Radical England. Supply and demand, +cause and effect, are enough for me. The Mile End cottages are out of +repair, Mr. Elsmere, so Mr. Henslowe tells me, because the site is +unsuitable, the type of cottage out of date. People live in them at +their peril; I don't pull them down, or rather'--correcting himself with +exasperating consistency--'Mr. Henslowe doesn't pull them down, because, +like other men, I suppose, he dislikes an outcry. But if the population +stays, it stays at its own risk. Now have I made myself plain?' + +The two men eyed one another. + +'Perfectly plain,' said Robert quietly. 'Allow me to remind you, Mr. +Wendover, that there are other matters than eviction capable of +provoking an outcry.' + +'As you please,' said the other indifferently. 'I have no doubt I shall +find myself in the newspapers before long. If so, I daresay I shall +manage to put up with it. Society is made up of fanatics and the +creatures they hunt. If I am to be hunted, I shall be in good company.' + +Robert stood hat in hand, tormented with a dozen crosscurrents of +feeling. He was forcibly struck with the blind and comparatively +motiveless pugnacity of the squire's conduct. There was an extravagance +in it which for the first time recalled to him old Meyrick's +lucubrations. + +'I have done no good, I see, Mr. Wendover,' he said at last, slowly. 'I +wish I could have induced you to do an act of justice and mercy. I wish +I could have made you think more kindly of myself. I have failed in +both. It is useless to keep you any longer. Good-morning.' + +He bowed. The squire also bent forward. At that moment Robert caught +sight beside his shoulder of an antique, standing on the mantelpiece, +which was a new addition to the room. It was a head of Medusa, and the +frightful stony calm of it struck on Elsmere's ruffled nerves with +extraordinary force. It flashed across him that here was an apt symbol +of that absorbing and overgrown life of the intellect which blights the +heart and chills the senses. And to that spiritual Medusa, the man +before him was not the first victim he had known. + +Possessed with the fancy the young man made his way into the hall. +Arrived there, he looked round with a kind of passionate regret: 'Shall +I ever see this again?' he asked himself. During the past twelve months +his pleasure in the great house had been much more than sensuous. Within +those walls his mind had grown, had reached to a fuller stature than +before, and a man loves, or should love, all that is associated with the +maturing of his best self. + +He closed the ponderous doors behind him sadly. The magnificent pile, +grander than ever in the sunny autumnal mist which enwrapped it, seemed +to look after him as he walked away, mutely wondering that he should +have allowed anything so trivial as a peasant's grievance to come +between him and its perfections. + + * * * * * + +In the wooded lane outside the rectory gate he overtook Catherine. He +gave her his report, and they walked on together arm-in-arm, a very +depressed pair. + +'What shall you do next?' she asked him. + +'Make out the law of the matter,' he said briefly. + +'If you get over the inspector,' said Catherine anxiously, 'I am +tolerably certain Henslowe will turn out the people.' + +He would not dare, Robert thought. At any rate, the law existed for such +cases, and it was his bounden duty to call the inspector's attention. + +Catherine did not see what good could be done thereby, and feared harm. +But her wifely chivalry felt that he must get through his first serious +practical trouble his own way. She saw that he felt himself +distressingly young and inexperienced, and would not for the world have +harassed him by over advice. + +So she let him alone, and presently Robert threw the matter from him +with a sigh. + +'Let it be a while,' he said, with a shake of his long frame. 'I shall +get morbid over it if I don't mind. I am a selfish wretch too. I know +you have worries of your own, wifie.' + +And he took her hand under the trees and kissed it with a boyish +tenderness. + +'Yes,' said Catherine, sighing, and then paused. 'Robert,' she burst out +again, 'I am certain that man made love of a kind to Rose. _He_ will +never think of it again, but since the night before last she, to my +mind, is simply a changed creature.' + +'_I_ don't see it,' said Robert doubtfully. + +Catherine looked at him with a little angel scorn in her gray eyes. That +men should make their seeing in such matters the measure of the visible! + +'You have been studying the squire, sir--I have been studying Rose.' + +Then she poured out her heart to him, describing the little signs of +change and suffering her anxious sense had noted, in spite of Rose's +proud effort to keep all the world, but especially Catherine, at arm's +length. And at the end her feeling swept her into a denunciation of +Langham, which was to Robert like a breath from the past, from those +stern hills wherein he met her first. The happiness of their married +life had so softened or masked all her ruggedness of character, that +there was a certain joy in seeing those strong forces in her which had +struck him first reappear. + +'Of course I feel myself to blame,' he said when she stopped. 'But how +could one foresee, with such an inveterate hermit and recluse? And I +owed him--I owe him--so much.' + +'I know,' said Catherine, but frowning still. It probably seemed to her +that that old debt had been more than effaced. + +'You will have to send her to Berlin,' said Elsmere after a pause. 'You +must play off her music against this unlucky feeling. If it exists it is +your only chance.' + +'Yes, she must go to Berlin,' said Catherine slowly. + +Then presently she looked up, a flash of exquisite feeling breaking up +the delicate resolution of the face. + +'I am not sad about that, Robert. Oh, how you have widened my world for +me!' + +Suddenly that hour in Marrisdale came back to her. They were in the +woodpath. She crept inside her husband's arm and put up her face to him, +swept away by an overmastering impulse of self-humiliating love. + +The next day Robert walked over to the little market town of Churton, +saw the discreet and long-established solicitor of the place, and got +from him a complete account of the present state of the rural sanitary +law. The first step clearly was to move the sanitary inspector; if that +failed for any reason, then any _bona fide_ inhabitant had an appeal to +the local sanitary authority, viz. the board of guardians. Robert walked +home pondering his information, and totally ignorant that Henslowe, who +was always at Churton on market-days, had been in the market-place at +the moment when the rector's tall figure had disappeared within Mr. +Dunstan's office-door. That door was unpleasantly known to the agent in +connection with some energetic measures for raising money he had been +lately under the necessity of employing, and it had a way of attracting +his eyes by means of the fascination that often attaches to disagreeable +objects. + +In the evening Rose was sitting listlessly in the drawing-room. +Catherine was not there, so her novel was on her lap and her eyes were +staring intently into a world whereof they only had the key. Suddenly +there was a ring at the bell. The servant came, and there were several +voices and a sound of much shoe-scraping. Then the swing-door leading to +the study opened and Elsmere and Catherine came out. Elsmere stopped +with an exclamation. + +His visitors were two men from Mile End. One was old Milsom, more sallow +and palsied than ever. As he stood bent almost double, his old knotted +hand resting for support on the table beside him, everything in the +little hall seemed to shake with him. The other was Sharland, the +handsome father of the twins, whose wife had been fed by Catherine with +every imaginable delicacy since Robert's last visit to the hamlet. Even +his strong youth had begun to show signs of premature decay. The rolling +gipsy eyes were growing sunken, the limbs dragged a little. + +They had come to implore the rector to let Mile End alone. Henslowe had +been over there in the afternoon, and had given them all very plainly to +understand that if Mr. Elsmere meddled any more they would be all turned +out at a week's notice to shift as they could. 'And if you don't find +Thurston Common nice lying this weather, with the winter coming on, +you'll know who to thank for it,' the agent had flung behind him as he +rode off. + +Robert turned white. Rose, watching the little scene with listless eyes, +saw him towering over the group like an embodiment of wrath and pity. + +'If they turn us out, sir,' said old Milsom, wistfully looking up at +Elsmere with blear eyes, 'there'll be nothing left but the House for us +old 'uns. Why, lor' bless you, sir, it's not so bad but we can make +shift.' + +'You, Milsom!' cried Robert; 'and you've just all but lost your +grandchild! And you know your wife'll never be the same woman since that +bout of fever in the spring. And----' + +His quick eyes ran over the old man's broken frame with a world of +indignant meaning in them. + +'Ay, ay, sir,' said Milsom, unmoved. 'But if it isn't fevers, it's +summat else. I can make a shilling or two where I be, speshally in the +first part of the year, in the basket work, and my wife she goes +charring up at Mr. Carter's farm, and Mr. Dodson, him at the farther +farm, he do give us a bit sometimes. Ef you git us turned away it will +be a bad day's work for all on us, sir, you may take my word on it.' + +'And my wife so ill, Mr. Elsmere,' said Sharland, 'and all those +childer! I can't walk three miles farther to my work, Mr. Elsmere, I +can't nohow. I haven't got the legs for it. Let un be, sir. We'll rub +along.' + +Robert tried to argue the matter. + +If they would but stand by him he would fight the matter through, and +they should not suffer, if he had to get up a public subscription, or +support them out of his own pocket all the winter. A bold front, and +Mr. Henslowe must give way. The law was on their side, and every +labourer in Surrey would be the better off for their refusal to be +housed like pigs and poisoned like vermin. + +In vain. There is an inexhaustible store of cautious endurance in the +poor against which the keenest reformer constantly throws himself in +vain. Elsmere was beaten. The two men got his word, and shuffled off +back to their pestilential hovels, a pathetic content beaming on each +face. + +Catherine and Robert went back into the study. Rose heard her +brother-in-law's passionate sigh as the door swung behind them. + +'Defeated!' she said to herself with a curious accent. 'Well, everybody +must have his turn. Robert has been too successful in his life, I +think.--You wretch!' she added, after a minute, laying her bright head +down on the book before her. + +Next morning his wife found Elsmere after breakfast busily packing a +case of books in the study. They were books from the Hall library, which +so far had been for months the inseparable companions of his historical +work. + +Catherine stood and watched him sadly. + +'Must you, Robert?' + +'I won't be beholden to that man for anything an hour longer than I can +help,' he answered her. + +When the packing was nearly finished he came up to where she stood in +the open window. + +'Things won't be as easy for us in the future, darling,' he said to her. +'A rector with both squire and agent against him is rather heavily +handicapped. We must make up our minds to that.' + +'I have no great fear,' she said, looking at him proudly. + +'Oh, well--nor I--perhaps,' he admitted, after a moment. 'We can hold +our own. But I wish--oh, I wish'--and he laid his hand on his wife's +shoulder--'I could have made friends with the squire.' + +Catherine looked less responsive. + +'As squire, Robert, or as Mr. Wendover?' + +'As both, of course, but specially as Mr. Wendover.' + +'We can do without his friendship,' she said with energy. + +Robert gave a great stretch, as though to work off his regrets. + +'Ah, but,' he said, half to himself, as his arms dropped, 'if you are +just filled with the hunger to _know_, the people who know as much as +the squire become very interesting to you!' + +Catherine did not answer. But probably her heart went out once more in +protest against a knowledge that was to her but a form of revolt against +the awful powers of man's destiny. + +'However, here go his books,' said Robert. + + * * * * * + +Two days later Mrs. Leyburn and Agnes made their appearance, Mrs. +Leyburn all in a flutter concerning the event over which, in her own +opinion, she had come to preside. In her gentle fluid mind all +impressions were short-lived. She had forgotten how she had brought up +her own babies, but Mrs. Thornburgh, who had never had any, had filled +her full of nursery lore. She sat retailing a host of second-hand hints +and instructions to Catherine, who would every now and then lay her hand +smiling on her mother's knee, well pleased to see the flush of pleasure +on the pretty old face, and ready, in her patient filial way, to let +herself be experimented on to the utmost, if it did but make the poor +foolish thing happy. + +Then came a night when every soul in the quiet rectory, even hot, +smarting Rose, was possessed by one thought through many terrible hours, +and one only--the thought of Catherine's safety. It was strange and +unexpected, but Catherine, the most normal and healthy of women, had a +hard struggle for her own life and her child's, and it was not till the +gray autumn morning, after a day and night which left a permanent mark +on Robert, that he was summoned at last, and with the sense of one +emerging from black gulfs of terror, received from his wife's languid +hand the tiny fingers of his firstborn. + +The days that followed were full of emotion for these two people, who +were perhaps always over-serious, over-sensitive. They had no idea of +minimising the great common experiences of life. Both of them were +really simple, brought up in old-fashioned simple ways, easily touched, +responsive to all that high spiritual education which flows from the +familiar incidents of the human story, approached poetically and +passionately. As the young husband sat in the quiet of his wife's room, +the occasional restless movements of the small brown head against her +breast causing the only sound perceptible in the country silence, he +felt all the deep familiar currents of human feeling sweeping through +him--love, reverence, thanksgiving--and all the walls of the soul, as it +were, expanding and enlarging as they passed. + +Responsive creature that he was, the experience of these days was hardly +happiness. It went too deep; it brought him too poignantly near to all +that is most real and therefore most tragic in life. + +Catherine's recovery also was slower than might have been expected, +considering her constitutional soundness, and for the first week, after +that faint moment of joy when her child was laid upon her arm, and she +saw her husband's quivering face above her, there was a kind of +depression hovering over her. Robert felt it, and felt too that all his +devotion could not soothe it away. At last she said to him one evening, +in the encroaching September twilight, speaking with a sudden hurrying +vehemence, wholly unlike herself, as though a barrier of reserve had +given way,-- + +'Robert I cannot put it out of my head. I cannot forget it, _the pain of +the world_!' + +He shut the book he was reading, her hand in his, and bent over her with +questioning eyes. + +'It seems,' she went on, with that difficulty which a strong nature +always feels in self-revelation, 'to take the joy even out of our +love--and the child. I feel ashamed almost that mere physical pain +should have laid such hold on me--and yet I can't get away from it. It's +not for myself,' and she smiled faintly at him. 'Comparatively I had so +little to bear! But I know now for the first time what physical pain may +mean--and I never knew before! I lie thinking, Robert, about all +creatures in pain--workmen crushed by machinery, or soldiers--or poor +things in hospitals--above all of women! Oh, when I get well, how I will +take care of the women here! What women must suffer even here in +out-of-the-way cottages--no doctor, no kind nursing, all blind agony and +struggle! And women in London in dens like those Mr. Newcome got into, +degraded, forsaken, ill-treated, the thought of the child only an extra +horror and burden! And the pain all the time so merciless, so cruel--no +escape! Oh, to give all one is, or ever can be, to comforting! And yet +the great sea of it one can never touch! It is a nightmare--I am weak +still, I suppose; I don't know myself; but I can see nothing but jarred, +tortured creatures everywhere. All my own joys and comforts seem to lift +me selfishly above the common lot.' + +She stopped, her large gray-blue eyes dim with tears, trying once more +for that habitual self-restraint which physical weakness had shaken. + +'You _are_ weak,' he said, caressing her, 'and that destroys for a time +the normal balance of things. It is true, darling, but we are not meant +to see it always so clearly. God knows we could not bear it if we did.' + +'And to think,' she said, shuddering a little, 'that there are men and +women who in the face of it can still refuse Christ and the Cross, can +still say this life is all! How can they live--how dare they live?' + +Then he saw that not only man's pain, but man's defiance, had been +haunting her, and he guessed what persons and memories had been flitting +through her mind. But he dared not talk lest she should exhaust herself. +Presently, seeing a volume of Augustine's _Confessions_, her favourite +book, lying beside her, he took it up, turning over the pages, and +weaving passages together as they caught his eye. + +'_Speak to me, for Thy compassion's sake, O Lord my God, and tell me +what art Thou to me! Say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation!" Speak it +that I may hear. Behold the ears of my heart, O Lord; open them and say +unto my soul, "I am thy salvation!" I will follow after this voice of +Thine, I will lay hold on Thee. The temple of my soul, wherein Thou +shouldest enter, is narrow, do Thou enlarge it. It falleth into +ruins--do Thou rebuild it!... Woe to that bold soul which hopeth, if it +do but let Thee go, to find something better than Thee! It turneth +hither and thither, on this side and on that, and all things are hard +and bitter unto it. For Thou only art rest!... Whithersoever the soul of +man turneth it findeth sorrow, except only in Thee. Fix there, then, thy +resting-place, my soul! Lay up in Him whatever thou hast received from +Him. Commend to the keeping of the Truth whatever the Truth hath given +thee, and thou shalt lost nothing. And thy dead things shall revive and +thy weak things shall be made whole!_' + +She listened, appropriating and clinging to every word, till the nervous +clasp of the long delicate fingers relaxed, her head dropped a little, +gently, against the head of the child, and tired with much feeling she +slept. + +Robert slipped away and strolled out into the garden in the +fast-gathering darkness. His mind was full of that intense spiritual +life of Catherine's which in its wonderful self-containedness and +strength was always a marvel, sometimes a reproach, to him. Beside her, +he seemed to himself a light creature, drawn hither and thither by this +interest and by that, tangled in the fleeting shows of things--the toy +and plaything of circumstance. He thought ruefully and humbly, as he +wandered on through the dusk, of his own lack of inwardness: 'Everything +divides me from Thee!' he could have cried in St. Augustine's manner. +'Books, and friends, and work--all seem to hide Thee from me. Why am I +so passionate for this and that, for all these sections and fragments of +Thee? Oh, for the One, the All! Fix there thy resting-place, my soul!' + +And presently, after this cry of self-reproach, he turned to muse on +that intuition of the world's pain which had been troubling Catherine, +shrinking from it even more than she had shrunk from it, in proportion +as his nature was more imaginative than hers. And Christ the only clue, +the only remedy--no other anywhere in this vast universe, where all men +are under sentence of death, where the whole creation groaneth and +travaileth in pain together until now! + +And yet what countless generations of men had borne their pain, knowing +nothing of the one Healer. He thought of Buddhist patience and Buddhist +charity; of the long centuries during which Chaldean or Persian or +Egyptian lived, suffered, and died, trusting the gods they knew. And how +many other generations, nominally children of the Great Hope, had used +it as the mere instrument of passion or of hate, cursing in the name of +love, destroying in the name of pity! For how much of the world's pain +was not Christianity itself responsible? His thoughts recurred with a +kind of anguished perplexity to some of the problems stirred in him of +late by his historical reading. The strifes and feuds and violences of +the early Church returned to weigh upon him--the hair-splitting +superstition, the selfish passion for power. He recalled Gibbon's +lamentation over the age of the Antonines, and Mommsen's grave doubt +whether, taken as a whole, the area once covered by the Roman Empire can +be said to be substantially happier now than in the days of Severus. + +_O corruptio optimi!_ That men should have been so little affected by +that shining ideal of the New Jerusalem, 'descended out of Heaven from +God,' into their very midst--that the print of the 'blessed feet' along +the world's highway should have been so often buried in the sands of +cruelty and fraud! + +The September wind blew about him as he strolled through the darkening +column, set thick with great bushes of sombre juniper among the +yellowing fern, which stretched away on the left-hand side of the road +leading to the Hall. He stood and watched the masses of restless +discordant cloud which the sunset had left behind it, thinking the while +of Mr. Grey, of his assertions and his denials. Certain phrases of his +which Robert had heard drop from him on one or two rare occasions during +the later stages of his Oxford life ran through his head. + +'_The fairy-tale of Christianity'--'The origins of Christian +Mythology._' He could recall, as the words rose in his memory, the +simplicity of the rugged face, and the melancholy mingled with fire +which had always marked the great tutor's sayings about religion. + +'_Fairy Tale!_' Could any reasonable man watch a life like Catherine's +and believe that nothing but a delusion lay at the heart of it? And as +he asked the question, he seemed to hear Mr. Grey's answer: 'All +religions are true, and all are false. In them all, more or less +visibly, man grasps at the one thing needful--self forsaken, God laid +hold of. The spirit in them all is the same, answers eternally to +reality; it is but the letter, the fashion, the imagery, that are +relative and changing.' + +He turned and walked homeward, struggling, with a host of tempestuous +ideas as swift and varying as the autumn clouds hurrying overhead. And +then, through a break in a line of trees, he caught sight of the tower +and chancel window of the little church. In an instant he had a vision +of early summer mornings--dewy, perfumed, silent, save for the birds, +and all the soft stir of rural birth and growth, of a chancel fragrant +with many flowers, of a distant church with scattered figures, of the +kneeling form of his wife close beside him, himself bending over her, +the sacrament of the Lord's death in his hand. The emotion, the +intensity, the absolute self-surrender of innumerable such moments in +the past--moments of a common faith, a common self-abasement--came +flooding back upon him. With a movement of joy and penitence he threw +himself at the feet of Catherine's Master and his own: _'Fix there thy +resting-place, my soul!_' + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +Catherine's later convalescence dwelt in her mind in after years as a +time of peculiar softness and peace. Her baby-girl throve; Robert had +driven the squire and Henslowe out of his mind, and was all eagerness as +to certain negotiations with a famous naturalist for a lecture at the +village club. At Mile End, as though to put the rector in the wrong, +serious illness had for the time disappeared; and Mrs. Leyburn's mild +chatter, as she gently poked about the house and garden, went out in +Catherine's pony-carriage, inspected Catherine's stores, and hovered +over Catherine's babe, had a constantly cheering effect on the still +languid mother. Like all theorists, especially those at second-hand, +Mrs. Leyburn's maxims had been very much routed by the event. The babe +had ailments she did not understand, or it developed likes and dislikes +she had forgotten existed in babies, and Mrs. Leyburn was nonplussed. +She would sit with it on her lap, anxiously studying its peculiarities. +She was sure it squinted, that its back was weaker than other babies, +that it cried more than hers had ever done. She loved to be plaintive; +it would have seemed to her unladylike to be too cheerful, even over a +first grandchild. + +Agnes meanwhile made herself practically useful, as was her way, and she +did almost more than anybody to beguile Catherine's recovery by her +hours of Long Whindale chat. She had no passionate feeling about the +place and the people as Catherine had, but she was easily content, and +she had a good wholesome feminine curiosity as to the courtings and +weddings and buryings of the human beings about her. So she would sit +and chat, working the while with the quickest, neatest of fingers, till +Catherine knew as much about Jenny Tyson's Whinborough lover, and Farmer +Tredall's troubles with his son, and the way in which that odious woman +Molly Redgold bullied her little consumptive husband, as Agnes knew, +which was saying a good deal. + +About themselves Agnes was frankness itself. + +'Since you went,' she would say with a shrug, 'I keep the coach steady, +perhaps, but Rose drives, and we shall have to go where she takes us. By +the way, Cathie, what have you been doing to her here? She is not a bit +like herself. I don't generally mind being snubbed. It amuses her and +doesn't hurt me; and, of course, I know I am meant to be her foil. But, +really, sometimes she is too bad even for me.' + +Catherine sighed, but held her peace. Like all strong persons, she kept +things very much to herself. It only made vexations more real to talk +about them. But she and Agnes discussed the winter and Berlin. + +'You had better let her go,' said Agnes significantly; 'she will go +anyhow.' + +A few days afterwards Catherine, opening the drawing-room door +unexpectedly, came upon Rose sitting idly at the piano, her hands +resting on the keys, and her great gray eyes straining out of her white +face with an expression which sent the sister's heart into her shoes. + +'How you steal about, Catherine!' cried the player, getting up and +shutting the piano. 'I declare you are just like Millais's Gray Lady in +that ghostly gown.' + +Catherine came swiftly across the floor. She had just left her child, +and the sweet dignity of motherhood was in her step, her look. She came +and threw her arms round the girl. + +'Rose, dear, I have settled it all with mamma. The money can be managed, +and you shall go to Berlin for the winter when you like.' + +She drew herself back a little, still with her arms round Rose's waist, +and looked at her smiling, to see how she took it. + +Rose had a strange movement of irritation. She drew herself out of +Catherine's grasp. + +'I don't know that I had settled on Berlin,' she said coldly. 'Very +possibly Leipsic would be better.' + +Catherine's face fell. + +'Whichever you like, dear. I have been thinking about it ever since that +day you spoke of it--you remember--and now I have talked it over with +mamma. If she can't manage all the expense we will help. Oh, Rose,' and +she came nearer again, timidly, her eyes melting, 'I know we haven't +understood each other. I have been ignorant, I think, and narrow. But I +meant it for the best, dear--I did----' + +Her voice failed her, but in her look there seemed to be written the +history of all the prayers and yearnings of her youth over the pretty +wayward child who had been her joy and torment. Rose could not but meet +that look--its nobleness, its humble surrender. + +Suddenly two large tears rolled down her cheeks. She dashed them away +impatiently. + +'I am not a bit well,' she said, as though in irritable excuse both to +herself and Catherine. 'I believe I have had a headache for a +fortnight.' + +And then she put her arms down on a table near and hid her face upon +them. She was one bundle of jarring nerves--sore, poor passionate child, +that she was betraying herself; sorer still that, as she told herself, +Catherine was sending her to Berlin as a consolation. When girls have +love-troubles the first thing their elders do is to look for a +diversion. She felt sick and humiliated. Catherine had been talking her +over with the family, she supposed. + +Meanwhile Catherine stood by her tenderly, stroking her hair and saying +soothing things. + +'I am sure you will be happy at Berlin, Rose. And you mustn't leave me +out of your life, dear, though I am so stupid and unmusical. You must +write to me about all you do. We must begin a new time. Oh, I feel so +guilty sometimes,' she went on, falling into a low intensity of voice +that startled Rose, and made her look hurriedly up. 'I fought against +your music, I suppose, because I thought it was devouring you--leaving +no room for--for religion--for God. I was jealous of it for Christ's +sake. And all the time I was blundering! Oh, Rose,' and she sank on her +knees beside the chair, resting her head against the girl's shoulder, +'papa charged me to make you love God, and I torture myself with +thinking that, instead, it has been my doing, my foolish clumsy doing, +that you have come to think religion dull and hard. Oh, my darling, if I +could make amends--if I could get you not to love your art less but to +love it in God! Christ is the first reality; all things else are real +and lovely in Him. Oh, I have been frightening you away from Him! I +ought to have drawn you near. I have been so--so silent, so shut up, I +have never tried to make you feel what it was kept _me_ at His feet! Oh, +Rose, darling, you think the world real, and pleasure and enjoyment +real. But if I could have made you see and know the things I have seen +up in the mountains--among the poor, the dying--you would have _felt_ +Him saving, redeeming, interceding, as I did. Oh, then you _must_, you +_would_ have known that Christ only is real, that our joys can only +truly exist in Him. I should have been more open--more faithful--more +humble.' + +She paused with a long quivering sigh. Rose suddenly lifted herself, and +they fell into each other's arms. + +Rose, shaken and excited, thought, of course, of that night at Burwood, +when she had won leave to go to Manchester. This scene was the sequel to +that--the next stage in one and the same process. Her feeling was much +the same as that of the naturalist who comes close to any of the hidden +operations of life. She had come near to Catherine's spirit in the +growing. Beside that sweet expansion, how poor and feverish and +earth-stained the poor child felt herself! + +But there were many currents in Rose--many things striving for the +mastery. She kissed Catherine once or twice, then she drew herself back +suddenly, looking into the other's face. A great wave of feeling rushed +up and broke. + +'Catherine, could you ever have married a man that did not believe in +Christ?' + +She flung the question out--a kind of morbid curiosity, a wild wish to +find an outlet of some sort for things pent up in her, driving her on. + +Catherine started. But she met Rose's half-frowning eyes steadily. + +'Never, Rose! To me it would not be marriage.' + +The child's face lost its softness. She drew one hand away. + +'What have we to do with it?' she cried. 'Each one for himself.' + +'But marriage makes two one,' said Catherine, pale, but with a firm +clearness. 'And if husband and wife are only one in body and estate, not +one in soul, why, who that believes in the soul would accept such a +bond, endure such a miserable second best?' + +She rose. But though her voice had recovered all its energy, her +attitude, her look was still tenderness, still yearning itself. + +'Religion does not fill up the soul,' said Rose slowly. Then she added +carelessly, a passionate red flying into her cheek against her will, +'However, I cannot imagine any question that interests me personally +less. I was curious what you would say.' + +And she too got up, drawing her hand lightly along the keyboard of the +piano. Her pose had a kind of defiance in it; her knit brows forbade +Catherine to ask questions. Catherine stood irresolute. Should she throw +herself on her sister, imploring her to speak, opening her own heart on +the subject of this wild unhappy fancy for a man who would never think +again of the child he had played with? + +But the North-country dread of words, of speech that only defines and +magnifies, prevailed. Let there be no words, but let her love and watch. + +So, after a moment's pause, she began in a different tone upon the +inquiries she had been making, the arrangements that would be wanted for +this musical winter. Rose was almost listless at first. A stranger would +have thought she was being persuaded into something against her will. +But she could not keep it up. The natural instinct reasserted itself, +and she was soon planning and deciding as sharply, and with as much +young omniscience, as usual. + +By the evening it was settled. Mrs. Leyburn, much bewildered, asked +Catherine doubtfully, the last thing at night, whether she wanted Rose +to be a professional. Catherine exclaimed. + +'But, my dear,' said the widow, staring pensively into her bedroom fire, +'what's she to do with all this music?' Then after a second she added +half severely: 'I don't believe her father would have liked it; I don't, +indeed, Catherine!' + +Poor Catherine smiled and sighed in the background, but made no reply. + +'However, she never looks so pretty as when she's playing the +violin--never!' said Mrs. Leyburn presently in the distance, with a long +breath of satisfaction. 'She's got such a lovely hand and arm, +Catherine! They're prettier than mine, and even your father used to +notice mine.' + +'_Even._' The word had a little sound of bitterness. In spite of all his +love, had the gentle puzzle-headed woman found her unearthly husband +often very hard to live with? + +Rose meanwhile was sitting up in bed, with her hands round her knees, +dreaming. So she had got her heart's desire! There did not seem to be +much joy in the getting, but that was the way of things, one was told. +She knew she should hate the Germans--great, bouncing, over-fed, +sentimental creatures! + +Then her thoughts ran into the future. After six months--yes, by +April--she would be home, and Agnes and her mother could meet her in +London. + +_London._ Ah, it was London she was thinking of all the time, not +Berlin! She could not stay in the present; or rather the Rose of the +present went straining to the Rose of the future, asking to be righted, +to be avenged. + +'I will learn--I will learn fast--many things besides music!' she said +to herself feverishly. 'By April I shall be _much_ cleverer. Oh, _then_ +I won't be a fool so easily. We shall be sure to meet, of course. But he +shall find out that it was only a _child_, only a silly soft-hearted +baby he played with down here. I shan't care for him in the least, of +course not, not after six months. I don't _mean_ to. And I will make him +know it--oh, I will, though he is so wise, and so much older, and mounts +on such stilts when he pleases!' + +So once more Rose flung her defiance at fate. But when Catherine came +along the passage an hour later she heard low sounds from Rose's room, +which ceased abruptly as her step drew near. The elder sister paused; +her eyes filled with tears; her hand closed indignantly. Then she came +closer, all but went in, thought better of it, and moved away. If there +is any truth in brain-waves, Langham should have slept restlessly that +night. + +Ten days later an escort had been found, all preparations had been made, +and Rose was gone. + +Mrs. Leyburn and Agnes lingered a while, and then they too departed +under an engagement to come back after Christmas for a long stay, that +Mrs. Leyburn might cheat the northern spring a little. + + * * * * * + +So husband and wife were alone again. How they relished their solitude! +Catherine took up many threads of work which her months of comparative +weakness had forced her to let drop. She taught vigorously in the +school; in the afternoons, so far as her child would let her, she +carried her tender presence and her practical knowledge of nursing to +the sick and feeble; and on two evenings in the week she and Robert +threw open a little room there was on the ground-floor between the study +and the dining-room to the women and girls of the village, as a sort of +drawing-room. Hard-worked mothers would come, who had put their fretful +babes to sleep, and given their lords to eat, and had just energy left, +while the eldest daughter watched, and the men were at the club or the +'Blue Boar,' to put on a clean apron and climb the short hill to the +rectory. Once there, there was nothing to think of for an hour but the +bright room, Catherine's kind face, the rector's jokes, and the +illustrated papers or the photographs that were spread out for them to +look at if they would. The girls learned to come, because Catherine +could teach them a simple dressmaking, and was clever in catching stray +persons to set them singing; and because Mr. Elsmere read exciting +stories, and because nothing any one of them ever told Mrs. Elsmere was +forgotten by her, or failed to interest her. Any of her social equals of +the neighbourhood would have hardly recognised the reserved and stately +Catherine on these occasions. Here she felt herself at home, at ease. +She would never, indeed, have Robert's pliancy, his quick divination, +and for some time after her transplanting the North-country woman had +found it very difficult to suit herself to a new shade of local +character. But she was learning from Robert every day; she watched him +among the poor, recognising all his gifts with a humble intensity of +admiring love, which said little but treasured everything, and for +herself her inward happiness and peace shone through her quiet ways, +making her the mother and the friend of all about her. + +As for Robert, he, of course, was living at high pressure all round. +Outside his sermons and his school, his Natural History Club had perhaps +most of his heart, and the passion for science, little continuous work +as he was able to give it, grew on him more and more. He kept up as best +he could, working with one hand, so to speak, when he could not spare +two, and in his long rambles over moor and hill, gathering in with his +quick eye a harvest of local fact wherewith to feed their knowledge and +his own. + +The mornings he always spent at work among his books, the afternoons in +endless tramps over the parish, sometimes alone, sometimes with +Catherine; and in the evenings, if Catherine was 'at home,' twice a week +to womankind, he had his nights when his study became the haunt and prey +of half the boys in the place, who were free of everything, as soon as +he had taught them to respect his books, and not to taste his medicines; +other nights when he was lecturing or story-telling in the club or in +some outlying hamlet; or others again, when with Catherine beside him he +would sit trying to think some of that religious passion which burned in +both their hearts, into clear words or striking illustrations for his +sermons. + +Then his choir was much upon his mind. He knew nothing about music, nor +did Catherine; their efforts made Rose laugh irreverently when she got +their letters at Berlin. But Robert believed in a choir chiefly as an +excellent social and centralising instrument. There had been none in Mr. +Preston's day. He was determined to have one, and a good one, and by +sheer energy he succeeded, delighting in his boyish way over the +opposition some of his novelties excited among the older and more +stiff-backed inhabitants. + +'Let them talk,' he would say brightly to Catherine. 'They will come +round; and talk is good. Anything to make them think, to stir the +pool!' + +Of course that old problem of the agricultural labourer weighed upon +him--his grievances, his wants. He went about pondering the English land +system, more than half inclined one day to sink part of his capital in a +peasant-proprietor experiment, and ingulfed the next in all the moral +and economical objection, to the French system. Land for allotments, at +any rate, he had set his heart on. But in this direction, as in many +others, the way was barred. All the land in the parish was the squire's, +and not one inch of the squire's land would Henslowe let young Elsmere +have anything to do with if he knew it. He would neither repair nor +enlarge the Workmen's Institute; and he had a way of forgetting the +squire's customary subscriptions to parochial objects, always paid +through him, which gave him much food for chuckling whenever he passed +Elsmere in the country lanes. The man's coarse insolence and mean hatred +made themselves felt at every turn, besmirching and embittering. + +Still it was very true that neither Henslowe nor the squire could do +Robert much harm. His hold on the parish was visibly strengthening; his +sermons were not only filling the church with his own parishioners, but +attracting hearers from the districts round Murewell, so that even on +these winter Sundays there was almost always a sprinkling of strange +faces among the congregation; and his position in the county and diocese +was becoming every month more honourable and important. The gentry about +showed them much kindness, and would have shown them much hospitality if +they had been allowed. But though Robert had nothing of the ascetic +about him, and liked the society of his equals as much as most +good-tempered and vivacious people do, he and Catherine decided that for +the present they had no time to spare for visits and county society. +Still, of course, there were many occasions on which the routine of +their life brought them across their neighbours, and it began to be +pretty widely recognised that Elsmere was a young fellow of unusual +promise and intelligence, that his wife too was remarkable, and that +between them they were likely to raise the standard of clerical effort +considerably in their part of Surrey. + +All the factors of this life--his work, his influence, his recovered +health, the lavish beauty of the country, Elsmere enjoyed with all his +heart. But at the root of all there lay what gave value and savour to +everything else--that exquisite home-life of theirs, that tender, triple +bond of husband, wife, and child. + +Catherine, coming home tired from teaching or visiting, would find her +step quickening as she reached the gate of the rectory, and the sense of +delicious possession waking up in her, which is one of the first fruits +of motherhood. There, at the window, between the lamplight behind and +the winter dusk outside, would be the child in its nurse's arms, little +wondering, motiveless smiles passing over the tiny puckered face that +was so oddly like Robert already. And afterwards, in the fire-lit +nursery, with the bath in front of the high fender, and all the +necessaries of baby life beside it, she would go through those functions +which mothers love and linger over, let the kicking dimpled creature +principally concerned protest as it may against the over-refinements of +civilisation. Then, when the little restless voice was stilled, and the +cradle left silent in the darkened room, there would come the short +watching for Robert, his voice, his kiss, their simple meal together, a +moment of rest, of laughter and chat, before some fresh effort claimed +them. Every now and then--white-letter days--there would drop on them a +long evening together. Then out would come one or the few books--Dante +or Virgil or Milton--which had entered into the fibre of Catherine's +strong nature. The two heads would draw close over them, or Robert would +take some thought of hers as a text, and spout away from the hearthrug, +watching all the while for her smile, her look of assent. Sometimes, +late at night, when there was a sermon on his mind, he would dive into +his pocket for his Greek Testament and make her read, partly for the +sake of teaching her--for she knew some Greek and longed to know +more--but mostly that he might get from her some of that garnered wealth +of spiritual experience which he adored in her. They would go from verse +to verse, from thought to thought, till suddenly perhaps the tide of +feeling would rise, and while the wind swept round the house, and the +owls hooted in the elms, they would sit hand in hand, lost in love and +faith,--Christ near them--Eternity, warm with God, enwrapping them. + + * * * * * + +So much for the man of action, the husband, the philanthropist. In +reality, great as was the moral energy of this period of Elsmere's life, +the dominant distinguishing note of it was not moral but intellectual. + +In matters of conduct he was but developing habits and tendencies +already strongly present in him; in matters of thinking, with every +month of this winter he was becoming conscious of fresh forces, fresh +hunger, fresh horizons. + +'_One half of your day be the king of your world_,' Mr. Grey had said to +him; '_the other half be the slave of something which will take you out +of your world_, into the general life, the life of thought, of man as a +whole, of the universe.' + +The counsel, as we have seen, had struck root and flowered into action. +So many men of Elsmere's type give themselves up once and for all as +they become mature to the life of doing and feeling, practically +excluding the life of thought. It was Henry Grey's influence in all +probability, perhaps, too, the training of an earlier Langham, that +saved for Elsmere the life of thought. + +The form taken by this training of his own mind he had been thus +encouraged not to abandon, was, as we know, the study of history. He had +well mapped out before him that book on the origins of France which he +had described to Langham. It was to take him years, of course, and +meanwhile, in his first enthusiasm, he was like a child, revelling in +the treasure of work that lay before him. As he had told Langham, he had +just got below the surface of a great subject and was beginning to dig +into the roots of it. Hitherto he had been under the guidance of men of +his own day, of the nineteenth century historian, who refashions the +past on the lines of his own mind, who gives it rationality, coherence, +and, as it were, modernness, so that the main impression he produces on +us, so long as we look at that past through him only, is on the whole an +impression of _continuity_, of _resemblance_. + +Whereas, on the contrary, the first impression left on a man by the +attempt to plunge into the materials of history for himself is almost +always an extraordinarily sharp impression of _difference_, of +_contrast_. Ultimately, of course, he sees that these men and women +whose letters and biographies, whose creeds and general conceptions he +is investigating, are in truth his ancestors, bone of his bone, flesh of +his flesh. But at first the student who goes back, say, in the history +of Europe, behind the Renaissance or behind the Crusades into the actual +deposits of the past, is often struck with a kind of _vertige_. The men +and women whom he has dragged forth into the light of his own mind are +to him like some strange puppet-show. They are called by names he +knows--kings, bishops, judges, poets, priests, men of letters--but what +a gulf between him and them! What motives, what beliefs, what embryonic +processes of thought and morals, what bizarre combinations of ignorance +and knowledge, of the highest sanctity with the lowest credulity or +falsehood; what extraordinary prepossessions, born with a man and +tainting his whole ways of seeing and thinking from childhood to the +grave! Amid all the intellectual dislocation of the spectacle, indeed, +he perceives certain Greeks and certain Latins who represent a forward +strain, who belong as it seems to a world of their own, a world ahead of +them. To them he stretches out his hand: '_You_,' he says to them, +'though your priests spoke to you not of Christ, but of Zeus and +Artemis, _you_ are really my kindred!' But intellectually they stand +alone. Around them, after them, for long ages the world 'spake as a +child, felt as a child, understood as a child.' + +Then he sees what it is makes the difference, digs the gulf. +'_Science_,' the mind cries, '_ordered knowledge_.' And so for the first +time the modern recognises what the accumulations of his forefathers +have done for him. He takes the torch which man has been so long and +patiently fashioning to his hand, and turns it on the past, and at every +step the sight grows stranger, and yet more moving, more pathetic. The +darkness into which he penetrates does but make him grasp his own +guiding light the more closely. And yet, bit by bit, it has been +prepared for him by these groping half conscious generations, and the +scrutiny which began in repulsion and laughter ends in a marvelling +gratitude. + +But the repulsion and the laughter come first, and during this winter of +work Elsmere felt them both very strongly. He would sit in the morning +buried among the records of decaying Rome and emerging France, +surrounded by Chronicles, by Church Councils, by lives of the Saints, by +primitive systems of law, pushing his imaginative impetuous way through +them. Sometimes Catherine would be there, and he would pour out on her +something of what was in his own mind. + +One day he was deep in the life of a certain saint. The saint had been +bishop of a diocese in Southern France. His biographer was his successor +in the see, a man of high political importance in the Burgundian state, +renowned besides for sanctity and learning. Only some twenty years +separated the biography, at the latest, from the death of its subject. +It contained some curious material for social history, and Robert was +reading it with avidity. But it was, of course, a tissue of marvels. The +young bishop had practised every virtue known to the time, and wrought +every conceivable miracle, and the miracles were better told than usual, +with more ingenuity, more imagination. Perhaps on that account they +struck the reader's sense more sharply. + +'And the saint said to the sorcerers and to the practisers of unholy +arts, that they should do those evil things no more, for he had bound +the spirits of whom they were wont to inquire, and they would get no +further answers to their incantations. Then those stiff-necked sons of +the devil fell upon the man of God, scourged him sore, and threatened +him with death, if he would not instantly loose those spirits he had +bound. And seeing he could prevail nothing, and being, moreover, +admonished by God so to do, he permitted them to work their own +damnation. For he called for a parchment and wrote upon it, "_Ambrose +unto Satan--Enter!_" Then was the spell loosed, the spirits returned, +the sorcerers inquired as they were accustomed, and received answers. +But in a short space of time every one of them perished miserably and +was delivered unto his natural lord Satanas, whereunto he belonged.' + +Robert made a hasty exclamation, and turning to Catherine, who was +working beside him, read the passage to her, with a few words as to the +book and its author. + +Catherine's work dropped a moment on to her knee. + +'What extraordinary superstition!' she said, startled. 'A bishop, +Robert, and an educated man?' + +Robert nodded. + +'But it is the whole habit of mind,' he said half to himself, staring +into the fire, 'that is so astounding. No one escapes it. The whole age +really is non-sane.' + +'I suppose the devout Catholic would believe that?' + +'I am not sure,' said Robert dreamily, and remained sunk in thought for +long after, while Catherine worked, and pondered a Christmas +entertainment for her girls. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps it was his scientific work, fragmentary as it was, that was +really quickening and sharpening these historical impressions of his. +Evolution--once a mere germ in the mind--was beginning to press, to +encroach, to intermeddle with the mind's other furniture. + +And the comparative instinct--that tool, _par excellence_, of modern +science--was at last fully awake, was growing fast, taking hold, now +here, now there. + +'It is tolerably clear to me,' he said to himself suddenly one winter +afternoon, as he was trudging home alone from Mile End, 'that some day +or other I must set to work to bring a little order into one's notions +of the Old Testament. At present they are just a chaos!' + +He walked on a while, struggling with the rainstorm which had overtaken +him, till again the mind's quick life took voice. + +'But what matter? God in the beginning--God in the prophets--in Israel's +best life--God in Christ! How are any theories about the Pentateuch to +touch that?' + +And into the clear eyes, the young face aglow with wind and rain, there +leapt a light, a softness indescribable. + +But the vivider and the keener grew this new mental life of Elsmere's, +the more constant became his sense of soreness as to that foolish and +motiveless quarrel which divided him from the squire. Naturally he was +for ever being harassed and pulled up in his work by the mere loss of +the Murewell library. To have such a collection so close, and to be cut +off from it, was a state of things no student could help feeling +severely. But it was much more than that: it was the man he hankered +after; the man who was a master where he was a beginner; the man who had +given his life to learning, and was carrying all his vast accumulations +sombrely to the grave, unused, untransmitted. + +'He might have given me his knowledge,' thought Elsmere sadly, 'and +I--I--would have been a son to him. Why is life so perverse?' + +Meanwhile he was as much cut off from the great house and its master as +though both had been surrounded by the thorn hedge of fairy tale. The +Hall had its visitors during these winter months, but the Elsmeres saw +nothing of them. Robert gulped down a natural sigh when one Saturday +evening, as he passed the Hall gates, he saw driving through them the +chief of English science side by side with the most accomplished of +English critics. + +'"There are good times in the world and I ain't in 'em!"' he said to +himself with a laugh and a shrug as he turned up the lane to the +rectory, and then, boy-like, was ashamed of himself, and greeted +Catherine with all the tenderer greeting. + +Only on two occasions during three months could he be sure of having +seen the squire. Both were in the twilight, when, as the neighbourhood +declared, Mr. Wendover always walked, and both made a sharp impression +on the rector's nerves. In the heart of one of the loneliest commons of +the parish Robert, swinging along one November evening through the +scattered furze bushes, growing ghostly in the darkness, was suddenly +conscious of a cloaked figure with slouching shoulders and head bent +forward coming towards him. It passed without recognition of any kind, +and for an instant Robert caught the long sharpened features and haughty +eyes of the squire. + +At another time Robert was walking, far from home, along a bit of level +road. The pools in the ruts were just filmed with frost, and gleamed +under the sunset; the winter dusk was clear and chill. A horseman turned +into the road from a side lane. It was the squire again, alone. The +sharp sound of the approaching hoofs stirred Robert's pulse, and as they +passed each other the rector raised his hat. He thought his greeting was +acknowledged, but could not be quite sure. From the shelter of a group +of trees he stood a moment and looked after the retreating figure. It +and the horse showed dark against a wide sky barred by stormy reds and +purples. The wind whistled through the withered oaks; the long road with +its lines of glimmering pools seemed to stretch endlessly into the +sunset; and with every minute the night strode on. Age and loneliness +could have found no fitter setting. A shiver ran through Elsmere as he +stepped forward. + +Undoubtedly the quarrel, helped by his work, and the perpetual presence +of that beautiful house commanding the whole country round it from its +plateau above the river, kept Elsmere specially in mind of the squire. +As before their first meeting, and in spite of it, he became more and +more imaginatively preoccupied with him. One of the signs of it was a +strong desire to read the squire's two famous books: one, _The Idols of +the Market-place_, an attack on English beliefs; the other, _Essays on +English Culture_, an attack on English ideals of education. He had never +come across them as it happened, and perhaps Newcome's denunciation had +some effect in inducing him for a time to refrain from reading them. But +in December he ordered them and waited their coming with impatience. He +said nothing of the order to Catherine; somehow there were by now two or +three portions of his work, two or three branches of his thought, which +had fallen out of their common discussion. After all she was not +literary, and with all their oneness of soul there could not be an +_identity_ of interests or pursuits. + +The books arrived in the morning. (Oh, how dismally well, with what a +tightening of the heart, did Robert always remember that day in after +years!) He was much too busy to look at them, and went off to a meeting. +In the evening, coming home late from his night-school, he found +Catherine tired, sent her to bed, and went himself into his study to +put together some notes for a cottage lecture he was to give the +following day. The packet of books, unopened, lay on his writing-table. +He took off the wrapper, and in his eager way fell to reading the first +he touched. + +It was the first volume of _The Idols of the Market-place_. + +Ten or twelve years before, Mr. Wendover had launched this book into a +startled and protesting England. It had been the fruit of his first +renewal of contact with English life and English ideas after his return +from Berlin. Fresh from the speculative ferment of Germany and the far +profaner scepticism of France, he had returned to a society where the +first chapter of Genesis and the theory of verbal inspiration were still +regarded as valid and important counters on the board of thought. The +result had been this book. In it each stronghold of English popular +religion had been assailed in turn, at a time when English orthodoxy was +a far more formidable thing than it is now. + +The Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Gospels, St. Paul, Tradition, the +Fathers, Protestantism and Justification by Faith, the Eighteenth +Century, the Broad Church Movement, Anglican Theology--the squire had +his say about them all. And while the coolness and frankness of the +method sent a shock of indignation and horror through the religious +public, the subtle and caustic style, and the epigrams with which the +book was strewn, forced both the religious and irreligious public to +read, whether they would or no. A storm of controversy rose round the +volumes, and some of the keenest observers of English life had said at +the time, and maintained since, that the publication of the book had +made or marked an epoch. + +Robert had lit on those pages in the Essay on the Gospels where the +squire fell to analysing the evidence for the Resurrection, following up +his analysis by an attempt at reconstructing the conditions out of which +the belief in 'the legend' arose. Robert began to read vaguely at first, +then to hurry on through page after page, still standing, seized at once +by the bizarre power of the style, the audacity and range of the +treatment. + +Not a sound in the house. Outside, the tossing moaning December night; +inside, the faintly crackling fire, the standing figure. Suddenly it was +to Robert as though a cruel torturing hand were laid upon his inmost +being. His breath failed him; the book slipped out of his grasp; he sank +down upon his chair, his head in his hands. Oh, what a desolate +intolerable moment! Over the young idealist soul there swept a dry +destroying whirlwind of thought. Elements gathered from all +sources--from his own historical work, from the squire's book, from the +secret half-conscious recesses of the mind--entered into it, and as it +passed it seemed to scorch the heart. + +He stayed bowed there a while, then he roused himself with a half-groan, +and hastily extinguishing his lamp he groped his way upstairs to his +wife's room. Catherine lay asleep. The child, lost among its white +coverings, slept too; there was a dim light over the bed, the books, the +pictures. Beside his wife's pillow was a table on which there lay open +her little Testament and the _Imitation_ her father had given her. +Elsmere sank down beside her, appalled by the contrast between this soft +religious peace and that black agony of doubt which still overshadowed +him. He knelt there, restraining his breath lest it should wake her, +wrestling piteously with himself, crying for pardon, for faith, feeling +himself utterly unworthy to touch even the dear hand that lay so near +him. But gradually the traditional forces of his life reasserted +themselves. The horror lifted. Prayer brought comfort and a passionate +healing self-abasement. 'Master, forgive--defend--purify,' cried the +aching heart. '_There is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, +O God!_' + +He did not open the book again. Next morning he put it back into his +shelves. If there were any Christian who could affront such an +antagonist with a light heart, he felt with a shudder of memory it was +not he. + +'I have neither learning nor experience enough--yet,' he said to himself +slowly as he moved away, 'of course it can be met, but _I_ must grow; +must think--first.' + +And of that night's wrestle he said not a word to any living soul. He +did penance for it in the tenderest, most secret ways, but he shrank in +misery from the thought of revealing it even to Catherine. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Meanwhile the poor poisoned folk at Mile End lived and apparently +throve, in defiance of all the laws of the universe. Robert, as soon as +he found that radical measures were for the time hopeless, had applied +himself with redoubled energy to making the people use such palliatives +as were within their reach, and had preached boiled water and the +removal of filth till, as he declared to Catherine, his dreams were one +long sanitary nightmare. But he was not confiding enough to believe that +the people paid much heed, and he hoped more from a dry hard winter than +from any exertion either of his or theirs. + +But, alas! with the end of November a season of furious rain set in. + +Then Robert began to watch Mile End with anxiety, for so far every +outbreak of illness there had followed upon unusual damp. But the rains +passed, leaving behind them no worse results than the usual winter crop +of lung ailments and rheumatism, and he breathed again. + +Christmas came and went, and with the end of December the wet weather +returned. Day after day rolling masses of south-west cloud came up from +the Atlantic and wrapped the whole country in rain, which reminded +Catherine of her Westmoreland rain more than any she had yet seen in the +South. Robert accused her of liking it for that reason, but she shook +her head with a sigh, declaring that it was 'nothing without the becks.' + +One afternoon she was shutting the door of the school behind her, and +stepping out on the road skirting the green--the bedabbled wintry +green--when she saw Robert emerging from the Mile End lane. She crossed +over to him, wondering as she neared him that he seemed to take no +notice of her. He was striding along, his wideawake over his eyes, and +so absorbed that she had almost touched him before he saw her. + +'Darling, is that you? Don't stop me, I am going to take the +pony-carriage in for Meyrick. I have just come back from that accursed +place; three cases of diphtheria in one house, Sharland's wife--and two +others down with fever.' + +She made a horrified exclamation. + +'It will spread,' he said gloomily, 'I know it will. I never saw the +children look such a ghastly crew before. Well, I must go for Meyrick +and a nurse, and we must isolate and make a fight for it.' + +In a few days the diphtheria epidemic in the hamlet had reached terrible +proportions. There had been one death, others were expected, and soon +Robert in his brief hours at home could find no relief in anything, so +heavy was the oppression of the day's memories. At first Catherine for +the child's sake kept away; but the little Mary was weaned, had a good +Scotch nurse, was in every way thriving, and after a day or two +Catherine's craving to help, to be with Robert in his trouble, was too +strong to be withstood. But she dared not go backwards and forwards +between her baby and the diphtheritic children. So she bethought herself +of Mrs. Elsmere's servant, old Martha, who was still inhabiting Mrs. +Elsmere's cottage till a tenant could be found for it, and doing good +service meanwhile as an occasional parish nurse. The baby and its nurse +went over to the cottage. Catherine carried the child there, wrapped +close in maternal arms, and leaving her on old Martha's lap, went back +to Robert. + +Then she and he devoted themselves to a hand-to-hand fight with the +epidemic. At the climax of it there were about twenty children down with +it in different stages, and seven cases of fever. They had two hospital +nurses; one of the better cottages, turned into a sanatorium, +accommodated the worst cases under the nurses, and Robert and Catherine, +directed by them and the doctors, took the responsibility of the rest, +he helping to nurse the boys and she the girls. Of the fever cases +Sharland's wife was the worst. A feeble creature at all times, it seemed +almost impossible she could weather through. But day after day passed, +and by dint of incessant nursing she still lived. A youth of twenty, +the main support of a mother and five or six younger children was also +desperately ill. Robert hardly ever had him out of his thoughts, and the +boy's dog-like affection for the rector, struggling with his deathly +weakness, was like a perpetual exemplification of Ahriman and +Ormuzd--the power of life struggling with the power of death. + +It was a fierce fight. Presently it seemed to the husband and wife as +though the few daily hours spent at the rectory were mere halts between +successive acts of battle with the plague-fiend--a more real and grim +Grendel of the Marshes--for the lives of children. Catherine could +always sleep in these intervals, quietly and dreamlessly; Robert very +soon could only sleep by the help of some prescription of old Meyrick's. +On all occasions of strain since his boyhood there had been signs in him +of a certain lack of constitutional hardness which his mother knew very +well, but which his wife was only just beginning to recognise. However, +he laughed to scorn any attempt to restrain his constant goings and +comings, or those hours of night-nursing, in which, as the hospital +nurses were the first to admit, no one was so successful as the rector. +And when he stood up on Sundays to preach in Murewell Church, the worn +and spiritual look of the man, and the knowledge warm at each heart of +those before him of how the rector not only talked but lived, carried +every word home. + +This strain upon all the moral and physical forces, however, strangely +enough, came to Robert as a kind of relief. It broke through a tension +of brain which of late had become an oppression. And for both him and +Catherine these dark times had moments of intensest joy, points of white +light illuminating heaven and earth. There were cloudy nights--wet, +stormy January nights--when sometimes it happened to them to come back +both together from the hamlet, Robert carrying a lantern, Catherine +clothed in waterproof from head to foot, walking beside him, the rays +flashing now on her face, now on the wooded sides of the lane, while the +wind howled through the dark vault of branches overhead. And then, as +they talked or were silent, suddenly a sense of the intense blessedness +of this comradeship of theirs would rise like a flood in the man's +heart, and he would fling his free arm round her, forcing her to stand a +moment in the January night and storm while he said to her words of +passionate gratitude, of faith in an immortal union reaching beyond +change or death, lost in a kiss which was a sacrament. Then there were +the moments when they saw their child, held high in Martha's arms at the +window, and leaping towards her mother; the moments when one pallid +sickly being after another was pronounced out of danger; and by the help +of them the weeks passed away. + +Nor were they left without help from outside. Lady Helen Varley no +sooner heard the news than she hurried over. Robert, on his way one +morning from one cottage to another, saw her pony-carriage in the lane. +He hastened up to her before she could dismount. + +'No, Lady Helen, you mustn't come here,' he said to her peremptorily, as +she held out her hand. + +'Oh, Mr. Elsmere, let me. My boy is in town with his grandmother. Let me +just go through, at any rate, and see what I can send you.' + +Robert shook his head, smiling. A common friend of theirs and hers had +once described this little lady to Elsmere by a French sentence which +originally applied to the Duchesse de Choiseul. 'Une charmante petite +fee sortie d'un oeuf enchante!'--so it ran. Certainly, as Elsmere +looked down upon her now, fresh from those squalid death-stricken hovels +behind him, he was brought more abruptly than ever upon the contrasts of +life. Lady Helen wore a green velvet and fur mantle, in the production +of which even Worth had felt some pride; a little green velvet bonnet +perched on her fair hair; one tiny hand, ungloved, seemed ablaze with +diamonds; there were opals and diamonds somewhere at her throat, +gleaming among her sables. But she wore her jewels as carelessly as she +wore her high birth, her quaint irregular prettiness, or the one or two +brilliant gifts which made her sought after wherever she went. She loved +her opals as she loved all bright things; if it pleased her to wear them +in the morning, she wore them; and in five minutes she was capable of +making the sourest puritan forget to frown on her and them. To Robert +she always seemed the quintessence of breeding, of aristocracy at their +best. All her freaks, her sallies, her absurdities even, were graceful. +At her freest and gayest there were things in her--restraints, +reticences, perceptions--which implied behind her generations of rich, +happy, important people, with ample leisure to cultivate all the more +delicate niceties of social feeling and relation. Robert was often +struck by the curious differences between her and Rose. Rose was far the +handsomer; she was at least as clever; and she had a strong imperious +will where Lady Helen had only impulses and sympathies and +_engouements_. But Rose belonged to the class which struggles, where +each individual depends on himself and knows it. Lady Helen had never +struggled for anything--all the best things of the world were hers so +easily that she hardly gave them a thought; or rather, what she had +gathered without pain she held so lightly, she dispensed so lavishly, +that men's eyes followed her, fluttering through life, with much the +same feeling as was struck from Clough's radical hero by the peerless +Lady Maria-- + + 'Live, be lovely, forget us, be beautiful, even to proudness, + Even for their poor sakes whose happiness is to behold you; + Live, be uncaring, be joyous, be sumptuous; only be lovely!' + +'Uncaring,' however, little Lady Helen never was. If she was a fairy, +she was a fairy all heart, all frank foolish smiles and tears. + +'No, Lady Helen--no,' Robert said again. 'This is no place for you, and +we are getting on capitally.' + +She pouted a little. + +'I believe you and Mrs. Elsmere are just killing yourselves all in a +corner, with no one to see,' she said indignantly. 'If you won't let me +see, I shall send Sir Harry. But who'--and her brown fawn's eyes ran +startled over the cottages before her--'who, Mr. Elsmere, does this +_dreadful_ place belong to?' + +'Mr. Wendover,' said Robert shortly. + +'Impossible!' she cried incredulously. 'Why, I wouldn't ask one of my +dogs to sleep there,' and she pointed to the nearest hovel, whereof the +walls were tottering outwards, the thatch was falling to pieces, and the +windows were mended with anything that came handy--rags, paper, or the +crown of an old hat. + +'No, you would be ill advised,' said Robert, looking with a bitter +little smile at the sleek dachshund that sat blinking beside its +mistress. + +'But what is the agent about?' + +Then Robert told her the story, not mincing his words. Since the +epidemic had begun, all that sense of imaginative attraction which had +been reviving in him towards the squire had been simply blotted out by a +fierce heat of indignation. When he thought of Mr. Wendover now, he +thought of him as the man to whom in strict truth it was owing that +helpless children died in choking torture. All that agony of wrath and +pity he had gone through in the last ten days sprang to his lips now as +he talked to Lady Helen, and poured itself into his words. + +'Old Meyrick and I have taken things into our own hands now,' he said at +last briefly. 'We have already made two cottages fairly habitable. +To-morrow the inspector comes. I told the people yesterday I wouldn't be +bound by my promise a day longer. He must put the screw on Henslowe, and +if Henslowe dawdles, why we shall just drain and repair and sink for a +well ourselves. I can find the money somehow. At present we get all our +water from one of the farms on the brow.' + +'Money!' said Lady Helen impulsively, her looks warm with sympathy for +the pale harassed young rector. 'Sir Harry shall send you as much as you +want. And anything else--blankets--coals?' + +Out came her note-book, and Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full of +joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she +nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her +ponies at full speed, equally eager 'to tell Harry' and to ransack +Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to her to pull up +again. + +'Oh, Mr. Elsmere, my aunt, Lady Charlotte, does nothing but talk about +your sister-in-law. _Why_ did you keep her all to yourself? Is it kind, +is it neighbourly, to have such a wonder to stay with you and let nobody +share?' + +'A wonder?' said Robert, amused. 'Rose plays the violin very well, +but----' + +'As if relations ever saw one in proper perspective!' exclaimed Lady +Helen. 'My aunt wants to be allowed to have her in town next season if +you will all let her. I think she would find it fun. Aunt Charlotte +knows all the world and his wife. And if I'm there, and Miss Leyburn +will let me make friends with her, why, you know, _I_ can just protect +her a little from Aunt Charlotte!' + +The little laughing face bent forward again; Robert, smiling, raised his +hat, and the ponies whirled her off. In anybody else Elsmere would have +thought all this effusion insincere or patronising. But Lady Helen was +the most spontaneous of mortals, and the only high-born woman he had +ever met who was really, and not only apparently, free from the +'nonsense of rank.' Robert shrewdly suspected Lady Charlotte's social +tolerance to be a mere varnish. But this little person, and her +favourite brother Hugh, to judge from the accounts of him, must always +have found life too romantic, too wildly and delightfully interesting +from top to bottom, to be measured by any but romantic standards. + +Next day Sir Harry Varley, a great burly country squire, who adored his +wife, kept the hounds, owned a model estate, and thanked God every +morning that he was an Englishman, rode over to Mile End. Robert, who +had just been round the place with the inspector and was dead tired, had +only energy to show him a few of the worst enormities. Sir Harry, +leaving a cheque behind him, rode off with a discharge of strong +language, at which Robert, clergyman as he was, only grimly smiled. + +A few days later Mr. Wendover's crimes as a landowner, his agent's +brutality, young Elsmere's devotion, and the horrors of the Mile End +outbreak, were in everybody's mouths. The county was roused. The Radical +newspaper came out on the Saturday with a flaming article; Robert, much +to his annoyance, found himself the local hero; and money began to come +in to him freely. + +On the Monday morning Henslowe appeared on the scene with an army of +workmen. A racy communication from the inspector had reached him two +days before, so had a copy of the _Churton Advertiser_. He had spent +Sunday in a drinking bout, turning over all possible plans of vengeance +and evasion. Towards the evening, however, his wife, a gaunt clever +Scotchwoman, who saw ruin before them, and had on occasion an even +sharper tongue than her husband, managed to capture the supplies of +brandy in the house and effectually conceal them. Then she waited for +the moment of collapse which came on towards morning, and with her hands +on her hips she poured into him a volley of home-truths which not even +Sir Harry Varley could have bettered. Henslowe's nerve gave way. He went +out at daybreak, white and sullen, to look for workmen. + +Robert, standing on the step of a cottage, watched him give his orders, +and took vigilant note of their substance. They embodied the inspector's +directions, and the rector was satisfied. Henslowe was obliged to pass +him on his way to another group of houses. At first he affected not to +see the rector, then suddenly Elsmere was conscious that the man's +bloodshot eyes were on him. Such a look! If hate could have killed, +Elsmere would have fallen where he stood. Yet the man's hand +mechanically moved to his hat, as though the spell of his wife's +harangue were still potent over his shaking muscles. + +Robert took no notice whatever of the salutation. He stood calmly +watching till Henslowe disappeared into the last house. Then he called +one of the agent's train, heard what was to be done, gave a sharp nod of +assent, and turned on his heel. So far so good: the servant had been +made to feel, but he wished it had been the master. Oh, those three +little emaciated creatures whose eyes he had closed, whose clammy hands +he had held to the last!--what reckoning should be asked for their +undeserved torments when the Great Account came to be made up? + +Meanwhile not a sound apparently of all this reached the squire in the +sublime solitude of Murewell. A fortnight had passed. Henslowe had been +conquered, the county had rushed to Elsmere's help, and neither he nor +Mrs. Darcy had made a sign. Their life was so abnormal that it was +perfectly possible they had heard nothing. Elsmere wondered when they +_would_ hear. + +The rector's chief help and support all through had been old Meyrick. +The parish doctor had been in bed with rheumatism when the epidemic +broke out, and Robert, feeling it a comfort to be rid of him, had thrown +the whole business into the hands of Meyrick and his son. This son was +nominally his father's junior partner, but as he was, besides, a young +and brilliant M.D. fresh from a great hospital, and his father was just +a poor old general practitioner, with the barest qualification, and only +forty years' experience to recommend him, it will easily be imagined +that the subordination was purely nominal. Indeed young Meyrick was fast +ousting his father in all directions, and the neighbourhood, which had +so far found itself unable either to enter or to quit this mortal scene +without old Meyrick's assistance, was beginning to send notes to the +house in Churton High Street, whereon the superscription 'Dr. _Edward_ +Meyrick' was underlined with ungrateful emphasis. The father took his +deposition very quietly. Only on Murewell Hall would he allow no +trespassing, and so long as his son left him undisturbed there, he took +his effacement in other quarters with perfect meekness. + +Young Elsmere's behaviour to him, however, at a time when all the rest +of the Churton world was beginning to hold him cheap and let him see it, +had touched the old man's heart, and he was the rector's slave in this +Mile End business. Edward Meyrick would come whirling in and out of the +hamlet once a day. Robert was seldom sorry to see the back of him. His +attainments, of course, were useful, but his cocksureness was +irritating, and his manner to his father abominable. The father, on the +other hand, came over in the shabby pony-cart he had driven for the last +forty years, and having himself no press of business, would spend hours +with the rector over the cases, giving them an infinity of patient +watching, and amusing Robert by the cautious hostility he would allow +himself every now and then towards his son's new-fangled devices. + +At first Meyrick showed himself fidgety as to the squire. Had he been +seen, been heard from? He received Robert's sharp negatives with long +sighs, but Robert clearly saw that, like the rest of the world, he was +too much afraid of Mr. Wendover to go and beard him. Some months before, +as it happened, Elsmere had told him the story of his encounter with the +squire, and had been a good deal moved and surprised by the old man's +concern. + +One day, about three weeks from the beginning of the outbreak, when the +state of things in the hamlet was beginning decidedly to mend, Meyrick +arrived for his morning round, much preoccupied. He hurried his work a +little, and after it was done asked Robert to walk up the road with him. + +'I have seen the squire, sir,' he said, turning on his companion with a +certain excitement. + +Robert flushed. + +'Have you?' he replied with his hands behind him, and a world of +expression in his sarcastic voice. + +'You misjudge him! You misjudge him, Mr. Elsmere!' the old man said +tremulously. 'I told you he could know nothing of this business--and he +didn't! He has been in town part of the time, and down here--how is he +to know anything? He sees nobody. That man Henslowe, sir, must be a real +_bad_ fellow.' + +'Don't abuse the man,' said Robert, looking up. 'It's not worth while, +when you can say your mind of the master.' + +Old Meyrick sighed. + +'Well,' said Robert, after a moment, his lip drawn and quivering, 'you +told him the story, I suppose? Seven deaths, is it, by now? Well, what +sort of impression did these unfortunate accidents'--and he +smiled--'produce?' + +'He talked of sending money,' said Meyrick doubtfully; 'he said he would +have Henslowe up and inquire. He seemed put about and annoyed. Oh, Mr. +Elsmere, you think too hardly of the squire, that you do!' + +They strolled on together in silence. Robert was not inclined to +discuss the matter. But old Meyrick seemed to be labouring under some +suppressed emotion, and presently he began upon his own experiences as a +doctor of the Wendover family. He had already broached the subject more +or less vaguely with Robert. Now, however, he threw his medical reserve, +generally his strongest characteristic, to the winds. He insisted on +telling his companion, who listened reluctantly, the whole miserable and +ghastly story of the old squire's suicide. He described the heir's +summons, his arrival just in time for the last scene with all its +horrors, and that mysterious condition of the squire for some months +afterwards, when no one, not even Mrs. Darcy, had been admitted to the +Hall, and old Meyrick, directed at intervals by a great London doctor, +had been the only spectator of Roger Wendover's physical and mental +breakdown, the only witness of that dark consciousness of inherited +fatality which at that period of his life not even the squire's iron +will had been able wholly to conceal. + +Robert, whose attention was inevitably roused after a while, found +himself with some curiosity realising the squire from another man's +totally different point of view. Evidently Meyrick had seen him at such +moments as wring from the harshest nature whatever grains of tenderness, +of pity, or of natural human weakness may be in it. And it was clear, +too, that the squire, conscious perhaps of a shared secret, and feeling +a certain soothing influence in the _naivete_ and simplicity of the old +man's sympathy, had allowed himself at times, in the years succeeding +that illness of his, an amount of unbending in Meyrick's presence, such +as probably no other mortal had ever witnessed in him since his earliest +youth. + +And yet how childish the old man's whole mental image of the squire was +after all! What small account it made of the subtleties, the gnarled +intricacies and contradictions of such a character! Horror at his +father's end, and dread of a like fate for himself! Robert did not know +very much of the squire, but he knew enough to feel sure that this +confiding indulgent theory of Meyrick's was ludicrously far from the +mark as an adequate explanation of Mr. Wendover's later life. + +Presently Meyrick became aware of the sort of tacit resistance which his +companion's mind was opposing to his own. He dropped the wandering +narrative he was busy upon with a sigh. + +'Ah well, I daresay it's hard, it's hard,' he said with patient +acquiescence in his voice, 'to believe a man can't help himself. I +daresay we doctors get to muddle up right and wrong. But if ever there +was a man sick in mind--for all his book-learning they talk about--and +sick in soul, that man is the squire.' + +Robert looked at him with a softer expression. There was a new dignity +about the simple old man. The old-fashioned deference, which had never +let him forget in speaking to Robert that he was speaking to a man of +family, and which showed itself in all sorts of antiquated locutions +which were a torment to his son, had given way to something still more +deeply ingrained. His gaunt figure, with the stoop, and the spectacles +and the long straight hair--like the figure of a superannuated +schoolmaster--assumed, as he turned again to his younger companion, +something of authority, something almost of stateliness. + +'Ah, Mr. Elsmere,' he said, laying his shrunk hand on the younger +man's sleeve and speaking with emotion, 'you're very good to the +poor. We're all proud of you--you and your good lady. But when +you were coming, and I heard tell all about you, I thought of +my poor squire, and I said to myself, "That young man'll be good +to _him_. The squire will make friends with him, and Mr. Elsmere +will have a good wife--and there'll be children born to him--and +the squire will take an interest--and--and--maybe----'" + +The old man paused. Robert grasped his hand silently. + +'And there was something in the way between you,' the speaker went on, +sighing. 'I daresay you were quite right--quite right. I can't judge. +Only there are ways of doing a thing. And it was a last chance; and now +its missed--it's missed. Ah! it's no good talking; he has a heart--he +has! Many's the kind thing he's done in old days for me and mine--I'll +never forget them! But all these last few years--oh, I know, I know. You +can't go and shut your heart up, and fly in the face of all the duties +the Lord laid on you, without losing yourself and setting the Lord +against you. But it is pitiful, Mr. Elsmere, it's pitiful!' + +It seemed to Robert suddenly as though there was a Divine breath passing +through the wintry lane and through the shaking voice of the old man. +Beside the spirit looking out of those wrinkled eyes, his own hot youth, +its justest resentments, its most righteous angers, seemed crude, harsh, +inexcusable. + +'Thank you, Meyrick, thank you, and God bless you! Don't imagine I will +forget a word you have said to me.' + +The rector shook the hand he held warmly twice over, a gentle smile +passed over Meyrick's ageing face, and they parted. + +That night it fell to Robert to sit up after midnight with John Allwood, +the youth of twenty whose case had been a severer tax on the powers of +the little nursing staff than perhaps any other. Mother and neighbours +were worn out, and it was difficult to spare a hospital nurse for long +together from the diphtheria cases. Robert, therefore, had insisted +during the preceding week on taking alternate nights with one of the +nurses. During the first hours before midnight he slept soundly on a bed +made up in the ground-floor room of the little sanatorium. Then at +twelve the nurse called him, and he went out, his eyes still heavy with +sleep, into a still frosty winter's night. + +After so much rain, so much restlessness of wind and cloud, the silence +and the starry calm of it were infinitely welcome. The sharp cold air +cleared his brain and braced his nerves, and by the time he reached the +cottage whither he was bound, he was broad awake. He opened the door +softly, passed through the lower room, crowded with sleeping children, +climbed the narrow stairs as noiselessly as possible, and found himself +in a garret, faintly lit, a bed in one corner and a woman sitting beside +it. The woman glided away, the rector looked carefully at the table of +instructions hanging over the bed, assured himself that wine and milk +and beef essence and medicines were ready to his hand, put out his watch +on the wooden table near the bed, and sat him down to his task. The boy +was sleeping the sleep of weakness. Food was to be given every +half-hour, and in this perpetual impulse to the system lay his only +chance. + +The rector had his Greek Testament with him, and could just read it by +the help of the dim light. But after a while, as the still hours passed +on, it dropped on to his knee, and he sat thinking--endlessly thinking. +The young labourer lay motionless beside him, the lines of the long +emaciated frame showing through the bed-clothes. The night-light +flickered on the broken discoloured ceiling; every now and then a mouse +scratched in the plaster; the mother's heavy breathing came from the +next room; sometimes a dog barked or an owl cried outside. Otherwise +deep silence, such silence as drives the soul back upon itself. + +Elsmere was conscious of a strange sense of moral expansion. The stern +judgments, the passionate condemnations which his nature housed so +painfully, seemed lifted from it. The soul breathed an 'ampler aether, a +diviner air.' Oh! the mysteries of life and character, the subtle +inexhaustible claims of pity! The problems which hang upon our being +here; its mixture of elements; the pressure of its inexorable physical +environment; the relations of mind to body, of man's poor will to this +tangled tyrannous life--it was along these old, old lines his thought +went painfully groping; and always at intervals it came back to the +squire, pondering, seeking to understand, a new soberness, a new +humility and patience entering in. + +And yet it was not Meyrick's facts exactly that had brought this about. +Robert thought them imperfect, only half true. Rather was it the spirit +of love, of infinite forbearance in which the simpler, duller nature had +declared itself that had appealed to him, nay, reproached him. + +Then these thoughts led him on farther and farther from man to God, from +human defect to the Eternal Perfectness. Never once during those hours +did Elsmere's hand fail to perform its needed service to the faint +sleeper beside him, and yet that night was one long dream and +strangeness to him, nothing real anywhere but consciousness, and God its +source; the soul attacked every now and then by phantom stabs of doubt, +of bitter brief misgiving, as the barriers of sense between it and the +eternal enigma grew more and more transparent, wrestling awhile, and +then prevailing. And each golden moment of certainty, of conquering +faith, seemed to Robert in some sort a gift from Catherine's hand. It +was she who led him through the shades; it was her voice murmuring in +his ear. + +When the first gray dawn began to creep in slowly perceptible waves into +the room, Elsmere felt as though not hours but years of experience lay +between him and the beginnings of his watch. + +'It is by these moments we should date our lives,' he murmured to +himself as he rose; 'they are the only real landmarks.' + +It was eight o'clock, and the nurse who was to relieve him had come. The +results of the night for his charge were good: the strength had been +maintained, the pulse was firmer, the temperature lower. The boy, +throwing off his drowsiness, lay watching the rector's face as he talked +in an undertone to the nurse, his haggard eyes full of a dumb friendly +wistfulness. When Robert bent over him to say good-bye, this expression +brightened into something more positive, and Robert left him, feeling at +last that there was a promise of life in his look and touch. + +In another moment he had stepped out into the January morning. It was +clear and still as the night had been. In the east there was a pale +promise of sun; the reddish-brown trunks of the fir woods had just +caught it, and rose faintly glowing in endless vistas and colonnades one +behind the other. The flooded river itself rushed through the bridge as +full and turbid as before, but all the other water surfaces had gleaming +films of ice. The whole ruinous place had a clean, almost a festal air +under the touch of the frost, while on the side of the hill leading to +Murewell, tree rose above tree, the delicate network of their wintry +twigs and branches set against stretches of frost-whitened grass, till +finally they climbed into the pale all-completing blue. In a copse close +at hand there were woodcutters at work, and piles of gleaming laths +shining through the underwood. Robins hopped along the frosty road, and +as he walked on through the houses towards the bridge, Robert's quick +ear distinguished that most wintry of all sounds--the cry of a flock of +fieldfares passing overhead. + +As he neared the bridge he suddenly caught sight of a figure upon it, +the figure of a man wrapped in a large Inverness cloak, leaning against +the stone parapet. With a start he recognised the squire. + +He went up to him without an instant's slackening of his steady step. +The squire heard the sound of some one coming, turned, and saw the +rector. + +'I am glad to see you here, Mr. Wendover,' said Robert, stopping and +holding out his hand. 'I meant to have come to talk to you about this +place this morning. I ought to have come before.' + +He spoke gently, and quite simply, almost as if they had parted the day +before. The squire touched his hand for an instant. + +'You may not, perhaps, be aware, Mr. Elsmere,' he said, endeavouring to +speak with all his old hauteur, while his heavy lips twitched nervously, +'that, for one reason and another, I knew nothing of the epidemic here +till yesterday, when Meyrick told me.' + +'I heard from Mr. Meyrick that it was so. As you are here now, Mr. +Wendover, and I am in no great hurry to get home, may I take you through +and show you the people?' + +The squire at last looked at him straight--at the face worn and pale, +yet still so extraordinarily youthful, in which something of the +solemnity and high emotion of the night seemed to be still lingering. + +'Are you just come?' he said abruptly, 'or are you going back?' + +'I have been here through the night, sitting up with one of the fever +cases. It's hard work for the nurses, and the relations sometimes, +without help.' + +The squire moved on mechanically towards the village, and Robert moved +beside him. + +'And Mrs. Elsmere?' + +'Mrs. Elsmere was here most of yesterday. She used to stay the night +when the diphtheria was at its worst; but there are only four anxious +cases left--the rest all convalescent.' + +The squire said no more, and they turned into the lane, where the ice +lay thick in the deep ruts, and on either hand curls of smoke rose into +the clear cold sky. The squire looked about him with eyes which no +detail escaped. Robert, without a word of comment, pointed out this +feature and that, showed where Henslowe had begun repairs, where the new +well was to be, what the water supply had been till now, drew the +squire's attention to the roofs, the pigstyes, the drainage, or rather +complete absence of drainage, and all in the dry voice of some one going +through a catalogue. Word had already fled like wildfire through the +hamlet that the squire was there. Children and adults, a pale emaciated +crew, poured out into the wintry air to look. The squire knit his brows +with annoyance as the little crowd in the lane grew. Robert took no +notice. + +Presently he pushed open the door of the house where he had spent the +night. In the kitchen a girl of sixteen was clearing away the various +nondescript heaps on which the family had slept, and was preparing +breakfast. The squire looked at the floor. + +'I thought I understood from Henslowe,' he muttered, as though to +himself, 'that there were no mud floors left on the estate----' + +'There are only three houses in Mile End without them,' said Robert, +catching what he said. + +They went upstairs, and the mother stood open-eyed while the squire's +restless look gathered in the details of the room, the youth's face, as +he lay back on his pillows, whiter than they, exhausted and yet +refreshed by the sponging with vinegar and water which the mother had +just been administering to him; the bed, the gaps in the worm-eaten +boards, the spots in the roof where the plaster bulged inward, as though +a snake would bring it down; the coarse china shepherdesses on the +mantel-shelf, and the flowers which Catherine had put there the day +before. He asked a few questions, said an abrupt word or two to the +mother, and they tramped downstairs again and into the street. Then +Robert took him across to the little improvised hospital, saying to him +on the threshold, with a moment's hesitation,-- + +'As you know, for adults there is not much risk, but there is always +some risk----' + +A peremptory movement of the squire's hand stopped him, and they went +in. In the downstairs room were half-a-dozen convalescents, pale, +shadowy creatures, four of them under ten, sitting up in their little +cots, each of them with a red flannel jacket drawn from Lady Helen's +stores, and enjoying the breakfast which a nurse in white cap and apron +had just brought them. Upstairs, in a room from which a lath-and-plaster +partition had been removed, and which had been adapted, warmed and +ventilated by various contrivances to which Robert and Meyrick had +devoted their practical minds, were the 'four anxious cases.' One of +them, a little creature of six, one of Sharland's black-eyed children, +was sitting up, supported by the nurse, and coughing its little life +away. As soon as he saw it, Robert's step quickened. He forgot the +squire altogether. He came and stood by the bedside, rigidly still, for +he could do nothing, but his whole soul absorbed in that horrible +struggle for air. How often he had seen it now, and never without the +same wild sense of revolt and protest! At last the hideous membrane was +loosened, the child got relief, and lay back white and corpse-like, but +with a pitiful momentary relaxation of the drawn lines on its little +brow. Robert stooped and kissed the damp tiny hand. The child's eyes +remained shut, but the fingers made a feeble effort to close on his. + +'Mr. Elsmere,' said the nurse, a motherly body, looking at him with +friendly admonition, 'if you don't go home and rest you'll be ill too, +and I'd like to know who'll be the better for that?' + +'How many deaths?' asked the squire abruptly, touching Elsmere's arm, +and so reminding Robert of his existence. 'Meyrick spoke of deaths.' + +He stood near the door, but his eyes were fixed on the little bed, on +the half-swooning child. + +'Seven,' said Robert, turning upon him. 'Five of diphtheria, two of +fever. That little one will go too.' + +'Horrible!' said the squire under his breath, and then moved to the +door. + +The two men went downstairs in perfect silence. Below, in the +convalescent room, the children were capable of smiles, and of quick +coquettish beckonings to the rector to come and make game with them as +usual. But he could only kiss his hand to them and escape, for there was +more to do. + +He took the squire through all the remaining fever cases, and into +several of the worst cottages--Milsom's among them--and when it was all +over they emerged into the lane again, near the bridge. There was still +a crowd of children and women hanging about, watching eagerly for the +squire, whom many of them had never seen at all, and about whom various +myths had gradually formed themselves in the countryside. The squire +walked away from them hurriedly, followed by Robert, and again they +halted on the centre of the bridge. A horse led by a groom was being +walked up and down on a flat piece of road just beyond. + +It was an awkward moment. Robert never forgot the thrill of it, or the +association of wintry sunshine streaming down upon a sparkling world of +ice and delicate woodland and foam-flecked river. + +The squire turned towards him irresolutely; his sharply-cut wrinkled +lips opening and closing again. Then he held out his hand: 'Mr. Elsmere, +I did you a wrong--I did this place and its people a wrong. In my view, +regret for the past is useless. Much of what has occurred here is +plainly irreparable; I will think what can be done for the future. As +for my relation to you, it rests with you to say whether it can be +amended. I recognise that you have just cause of complaint.' + +What invincible pride there was in the man's very surrender! But Elsmere +was not repelled by it. He knew that in their hour together the squire +had _felt_. His soul had lost its bitterness. The dead and their wrong +were with God. + +He took the squire's outstretched hand, grasping it cordially, a pure +unworldly dignity in his whole look and bearing. + +'Let us be friends, Mr. Wendover. It will be a great comfort to us--my +wife and me. Will you remember us both very kindly to Mrs. Darcy?' + +Commonplace words, but words that made an epoch in the life of both. In +another minute the squire, on horseback, was trotting along the side +road leading to the Hall, and Robert was speeding home to Catherine as +fast as his long legs could carry him. + +She was waiting for him on the steps, shading her eyes against the +unwonted sun. He kissed her with the spirits of a boy and told her all +his news. + +Catherine listened bewildered, not knowing what to say or how all at +once to forgive, to join Robert in forgetting. But that strange +spiritual glow about him was not to be withstood. She threw her arms +about him at last with a half sob,-- + +'Oh, Robert--yes! Dear Robert--thank God!' + +'Never think any more,' he said at last, leading her in from the little +hall, 'of what has been, only of what shall be! Oh, Catherine, give me +some tea; and never did I see anything so tempting as that armchair.' + +He sank down into it, and when she put his breakfast beside him she saw +with a start that he was fast asleep. The wife stood and watched him, +the signs of fatigue round eyes and mouth, the placid expression, and +her face was soft with tenderness and joy. 'Of course--of course, even +that hard man must love him. Who could help it? My Robert!' + +And so now in this disguise, now in that, the supreme hour of +Catherine's life stole on and on towards her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +As may be imagined, the _Churton Advertiser_ did not find its way to +Murewell. It was certainly no pressure of social disapproval that made +the squire go down to Mile End in that winter's dawn. The county might +talk, or the local press might harangue, till Doomsday, and Mr. Wendover +would either know nothing or care less. + +Still his interview with Meyrick in the park after his return from a +week in town, whither he had gone to see some old Berlin friends, had +been a shock to him. A man may play the intelligent recluse, may refuse +to fit his life to his neighbours' notions as much as you please, and +still find death, especially death for which he has some responsibility, +as disturbing a fact as the rest of us. + +He went home in much irritable discomfort. It seemed to him probably +that fortune need not have been so eager to put him in the wrong. To +relieve his mind he sent for Henslowe, and in an interview, the memory +of which sent a shiver through the agent to the end of his days, he let +it be seen that though it did not for the moment suit him to dismiss the +man who had brought this upon him, that man's reign in any true sense +was over. + +But afterwards the squire was still restless. What was astir in him was +not so much pity or remorse as certain instincts of race which still +survived under the strange superstructure of manners he had built upon +them. It may be the part of a gentleman and a scholar to let the agent +whom you have interposed between yourself and a boorish peasantry have a +free hand; but, after all, the estate is yours, and to expose the rector +of the parish to all sorts of avoidable risks in the pursuit of his +official duty by reason of the gratuitous filth of your property, is an +act of doubtful breeding. The squire in his most rough-and-tumble days +at Berlin had always felt himself the grandee as well as the student. He +abhorred sentimentalism, but neither did he choose to cut an unseemly +figure in his own eyes. + +After a night; therefore, less tranquil or less meditative than usual, +he rose early and sallied forth at one of those unusual hours he +generally chose for walking. The thing must be put right somehow, and at +once, with as little waste of time and energy as possible, and Henslowe +had shown himself not to be trusted; so telling a servant to follow him, +the squire had made his way with difficulty to a place he had not seen +for years. + +Then had followed the unexpected and unwelcome apparition of the rector. +The squire did not want to be impressed by the young man, did not want +to make friends with him. No doubt his devotion had served his own +purposes. Still Mr. Wendover was one of the subtlest living judges of +character when he pleased, and his enforced progress through these +hovels with Elsmere had not exactly softened him, but had filled him +with a curious contempt for his own hastiness of judgment. + +'History would be inexplicable after all without the honest fanatic,' he +said to himself on the way home. 'I suppose I had forgotten it. There is +nothing like a dread of being bored for blunting your psychological +instinct.' + +In the course of the day he sent off a letter to the rector intimating +in the very briefest, driest way that the cottages should be rebuilt on +a different site as soon as possible, and enclosing a liberal +contribution towards the expenses incurred in fighting the epidemic. +When the letter was gone he drew his books towards him with a sound +which was partly disgust, partly relief. This annoying business had +wretchedly interrupted him, and his concessions left him mainly +conscious of a strong nervous distaste for the idea of any fresh +interview with young Elsmere. He had got his money and his apology; let +him be content. + +However, next morning after breakfast Mr. Wendover once more saw his +study door open to admit the tall figure of the rector. The note and +cheque had reached Robert late the night before, and, true to his +new-born determination to make the best of the squire, he had caught up +his wideawake at the first opportunity and walked off to the Hall to +acknowledge the gift in person. The interview opened as awkwardly as it +was possible, and with their former conversation on the same spot fresh +in their minds both men spent a sufficiently difficult ten minutes. The +squire was asking himself, indeed, impatiently, all the time, whether he +could possibly be forced in the future to put up with such an experience +again, and Robert found his host, if less sarcastic than before, +certainly as impenetrable as ever. + +At last, however, the Mile End matter was exhausted, and then Robert, as +good luck would have it, turned his longing eyes on the squire's books, +especially on the latest volumes of a magnificent German +_Weltgeschichte_ lying near his elbow, which he had coveted for months +without being able to conquer his conscience sufficiently to become the +possessor of it. He took it up with an exclamation of delight, and a +quiet critical remark that exactly hit the value and scope of the book. +The squire's eyebrows went up, and the corners of his mouth slackened +visibly. Half an hour later the two men, to the amazement of Mrs. Darcy, +who was watching them from the drawing-room window, walked back to the +park gates together, and what Robert's nobility and beauty of character +would never have won him, though he had worn himself to death in the +service of the poor and the tormented under the squire's eyes, a chance +coincidence of intellectual interest had won him almost in a moment. + +The squire walked back to the house under a threatening sky, his +mackintosh cloak wrapped about him, his arms folded, his mind full of an +unwonted excitement. + +The sentiment of long-past days--days in Berlin, in Paris, where +conversations such as that he had just passed through were the daily +relief and reward of labour, was stirring in him. Occasionally he had +endeavoured to import the materials for them from the Continent, from +London. But as a matter of fact it was years since he had had any such +talk as this with an Englishman on English ground, and he suddenly +realised that he had been unwholesomely solitary, and that for the +scholar there is no nerve stimulus like that of an occasional +interchange of ideas with some one acquainted with his _Fach_. + +'Who would ever have thought of discovering instincts and aptitudes of +such a kind in this long-legged optimist?' The squire shrugged his +shoulders as he thought of the attempt involved in such a personality to +combine both worlds, the world of action and the world of thought. +Absurd! Of course, ultimately one or other must go to the wall. + +Meanwhile, what a ludicrous waste of time and opportunity that he and +this man should have been at cross-purposes like this! 'Why the deuce +couldn't he have given some rational account of himself to begin with!' +thought the squire irritably, forgetting, of course, who it was that had +wholly denied him the opportunity. 'And then the sending back of those +books: what a piece of idiocy!' + +Granted an historical taste in this young parson, it was a curious +chance, Mr. Wendover reflected, that in his choice of a subject he +should just have fallen on the period of the later empire--of the +passage from the old world to the new, where the squire was a master. +The squire fell to thinking of the kind of knowledge implied in his +remarks, of the stage he seemed to have reached, and then to cogitating +as to the books he must be now in want of. He went back to his library, +ran over the shelves, picking out volumes here and there with an +unwonted glow and interest all the while. He sent for a case, and made a +youth who sometimes acted as his secretary pack them. And still as he +went back to his own work new names would occur to him, and full of the +scholar's avaricious sense of the shortness of time, he would shake his +head and frown over the three months which young Elsmere had already +passed, grappling with problems like Teutonic Arianism, the spread of +Monasticism in Gaul, and Heaven knows what besides, half a mile from the +man and the library which could have supplied him with the best help to +be got in England, unbenefited by either! Mile End was obliterated, and +the annoyance of the morning forgotten. + +The next day was Sunday, a wet January Sunday, raw and sleety, the frost +breaking up on all sides and flooding the roads with mire. + +Robert, rising in his place to begin morning service, and wondering to +see the congregation so good on such a day, was suddenly startled, as +his eye travelled mechanically over to the Hall pew, usually tenanted by +Mrs. Darcy in solitary state, to see the characteristic figure of the +squire. His amazement was so great that he almost stumbled in the +exhortation, and his feeling was evidently shared by the congregation, +which throughout the service showed a restlessness, an excited tendency +to peer round corners and pillars, that was not favourable to devotion. + +'Has he come to spy out the land?' the rector thought to himself, and +could not help a momentary tremor at the idea of preaching before so +formidable an auditor. Then he pulled himself together by a great +effort, and fixing his eyes on a shock-headed urchin half way down the +church, read the service to him. Catherine meanwhile in her seat on the +northern side of the nave, her soul lulled in Sunday peace, knew nothing +of Mr. Wendover's appearance. + +Robert preached on the first sermon of Jesus, on the first appearance of +the young Master in the synagogue at Nazareth:-- + +'_This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears!_' + +The sermon dwelt on the Messianic aspect of Christ's mission, on the +mystery and poetry of that long national expectation, on the pathos of +Jewish disillusion, on the sureness and beauty of Christian insight as +faith gradually transferred trait after trait of the Messiah of prophecy +to the Christ of Nazareth. At first there was a certain amount of +hesitation, a slight wavering hither and thither--a difficult choice of +words--and then the soul freed itself from man, and the preacher forgot +all but his Master and his people. + +At the door as he came out stood Mr. Wendover, and Catherine, slightly +flushed and much puzzled for conversation, beside him. The Hall carriage +was drawn close up to the door, and Mrs. Darcy, evidently much excited, +had her small head out of the window, and was showering a number of +flighty inquiries and suggestions on her brother, to which he paid no +more heed than to the patter of the rain. + +When Robert appeared the squire addressed him ceremoniously-- + +'With your leave. Mr. Elsmere, I will walk with you to the rectory.' +Then, in another voice, 'Go home, Laetitia, and don't send anything or +anybody.' + +He made a signal to the coachman, and the carriage started, Mrs. Darcy's +protesting head remaining out of window as long as anything could be +seen of the group at the church door. The odd little creature had paid +one or two hurried and recent visits to Catherine during the quarrel, +visits so filled, however, with vague railing against her brother and by +a queer incoherent melancholy, that Catherine felt them extremely +uncomfortable, and took care not to invite them. Clearly she was +mortally afraid of 'Roger,' and yet ashamed of being afraid. Catherine +could see that all the poor thing's foolish whims and affectations were +trampled on; that she suffered, rebelled, found herself no more able to +affect Mr. Wendover than if she had been a fly buzzing round him, and +became all the more foolish and whimsical in consequence. + +The squire and the Elsmeres crossed the common to the rectory, followed +at a discreet interval by groups of villagers curious to get a look at +the squire. Robert was conscious of a good deal of embarrassment, but +did his best to hide it. Catherine felt all through as if the skies had +fallen. The squire alone was at his ease, or as much at his ease as he +ever was. He commented on the congregation, even condescended to say +something of the singing, and passed over the staring of the choristers +with a magnanimity of silence which did him credit. + +They reached the rectory door, and it was evidently the squire's purpose +to come in, so Robert invited him in. Catherine threw open her little +drawing-room door, and then was seized with shyness as the squire passed +in, and she saw over his shoulder her baby, lying kicking and crowing on +the hearth-rug, in anticipation of her arrival, the nurse watching it. +The squire in his great cloak stopped, and looked down at the baby as if +it had been some curious kind of reptile. The nurse blushed, curtsied, +and caught up the gurgling creature in a twinkling. + +Robert made a laughing remark on the tyranny and ubiquity of babies. The +squire smiled grimly. He supposed it was necessary that the human race +should be carried on. Catherine meanwhile slipped out and ordered +another place to be laid at the dinner-table, devoutly hoping that it +might not be used. + +It was used. The squire stayed till it was necessary to invite him, then +accepted the invitation, and Catherine found herself dispensing boiled +mutton to him, while Robert supplied him with some very modest claret, +the sort of wine which a man who drinks none thinks it necessary to have +in the house, and watched the nervousness of their little parlour-maid +with a fellow-feeling which made it difficult for him during the early +part of the meal to keep a perfectly straight countenance. After a +while, however, both he and Catherine were ready to admit that the +squire was making himself agreeable. He talked of Paris, of a +conversation he had had with M. Renan, whose name luckily was quite +unknown to Catherine, as to the state of things in the French Chamber. + +'A set of chemists and quill-drivers,' he said contemptuously; 'but as +Renan remarked to me, there is one thing to be said for a government of +that sort, "Ils ne font pas la guerre." And so long as they don't run +France into adventures, and a man can keep a roof over his head and a +sou in his pocket, the men of letters at any rate can rub along. The +really interesting thing in France just now is not French +politics--Heaven save the mark!--but French scholarship. There never was +so little original genius going in Paris, and there never was so much +good work being done.' + +Robert thought the point of view eminently characteristic. + +'Catholicism, I suppose,' he said, 'as a force to be reckoned with, is +dwindling more and more?' + +'Absolutely dead,' said the squire emphatically, 'as an _intellectual_ +force. They haven't got a writer, scarcely a preacher. Not one decent +book has been produced on that side for years.' + +'And the Protestants, too,' said Robert, 'have lost all their best men +of late,' and he mentioned one or two well-known French Protestant +names. + +'Oh, as to French Protestantism'--and the squire's shrug was +superb--'Teutonic Protestantism is in the order of things, so to speak, +but _Latin_ Protestantism! There is no more sterile hybrid in the +world!' + +Then, becoming suddenly aware that he might have said something +inconsistent with his company, the squire stopped abruptly. Robert, +catching Catherine's quick compression of the lips, was grateful to him, +and the conversation moved on in another direction. + +Yes, certainly, all things considered, Mr. Wendover made himself +agreeable. He ate his boiled mutton and drank his _ordinaire_ like a +man, and when the meal was over, and he and Robert had withdrawn into +the study, he gave an emphatic word of praise to the coffee which +Catherine's housewifely care sent after them, and accepting a cigar, he +sank into the armchair by the fire and spread a bony hand to the blaze, +as if he had been at home in that particular corner for months. Robert, +sitting opposite to him, and watching his guest's eyes travel round the +room, with its medicine shelves, its rods and nets, and preparations of +uncanny beasts, its parish litter, and its teeming bookcases, felt that +the Mile End matter was turning out oddly indeed. + +'I have packed you a case of books, Mr. Elsmere,' said the squire, after +a puff or two at his cigar. 'How have you got on without that collection +of Councils?' + +He smiled a little awkwardly. It was one of the books Robert had sent +back. Robert flushed. He did not want the squire to regard him as wholly +dependent on Murewell. + +'I bought it,' he said, rather shortly. 'I have ruined myself in books +lately, and the London Library too supplies me really wonderfully well.' + +'Are these your books?' The squire got up to look at them. 'Hum, not at +all bad for a beginning. I have sent you so and so,' and he named one or +two costly folios that Robert had long pined for in vain. + +The rector's eyes glistened. + +'That was very good of you,' he said simply. 'They will be most +welcome.' + +'And now, how much _time_,' said the other, settling himself again to +his cigar, his thin legs crossed over each other, and his great head +sunk into his shoulders, 'how much time do you give to this work?' + +'Generally the mornings--not always. A man with twelve hundred souls to +look after, you know, Mr. Wendover,' said Elsmere, with a bright +half-defiant accent, 'can't make grubbing among the Franks his main +business.' + +The squire said nothing, and smoked on. Robert gathered that his +companion thought his chances of doing anything worth mentioning very +small. + +'Oh no,' he said, following out his own thought with a shake of his +curly hair; 'of course I shall never do very much. But if I don't, it +won't be for want of knowing what the scholar's ideal is.' And he lifted +his hand with a smile towards the squire's book on _English Culture_, +which stood in the bookcase just above him. The squire, following the +gesture, smiled too. It was a faint, slight illumining, but it changed +the face agreeably. + +Robert began to ask questions about the book, about the pictures +contained in it of foreign life and foreign universities. The squire +consented to be drawn out, and presently was talking at his very best. + +Racy stories of Mommsen or Von Ranke were followed by a description of +an evening of mad carouse with Heine--a talk at Nohant with George +Sand--scenes in the Duchesse de Broglie's salon--a contemptuous sketch +of Guizot--a caustic sketch of Renan. Robert presently even laid aside +his pipe, and stood in his favourite attitude, lounging against the +mantelpiece, looking down, absorbed, on his visitor. All that +intellectual passion which his struggle at Mile End had for the moment +checked in him revived. Nay, after his weeks of exclusive contact with +the most hideous forms of bodily ill, this interruption, these great +names, this talk of great movements and great causes, had a special +savour and relish. All the horizons of the mind expanded, the currents +of the blood ran quicker. + +Suddenly, however, he sprang up. + +'I beg your pardon? Mr. Wendover, it is too bad to interrupt you--I have +enjoyed it immensely--but the fact is I have only two minutes to get to +Sunday School in!' + +Mr. Wendover rose also, and resumed his ordinary manner. + +'It is I who should apologise,' he said with stiff politeness, 'for +having encroached in this way on your busy day, Mr. Elsmere.' + +Robert helped him on with his coat, and then suddenly the squire turned +to him. + +'You were preaching this morning on one of the Isaiah quotations in St. +Matthew. It would interest you, I imagine, to see a recent Jewish book +on the subject of the prophecies quoted in the Gospels which reached me +yesterday. There is nothing particularly new in it, but it looked to me +well done.' + +'Thank you,' said Robert, not, however, with any great heartiness, and +the squire moved away. They parted at the gate, Robert running down the +hill to the village as fast as his long legs could carry him. + +'Sunday School--pshaw!' cried the squire, as he tramped homeward in the +opposite direction. + +Next morning a huge packing-case arrived from the Hall, and Robert could +not forbear a little gloating over the treasures in it before he tore +himself away to pay his morning visit to Mile End. There everything was +improving; the poor Sharland child indeed had slipped away on the night +after the squire's visit, but the other bad cases in the diphtheria ward +were mending fast. John Allwood was gaining strength daily, and poor +Mary Sharland was feebly struggling back to a life which seemed hardly +worth so much effort to keep. Robert felt, with a welcome sense of +slackening strain, that the daily and hourly superintendence which he +and Catherine had been giving to the place might lawfully be relaxed, +that the nurses on the spot were now more than equal to their task, and +after having made his round he raced home again in order to secure an +hour with his books before luncheon. + +The following day a note arrived, while they were at luncheon, in the +squire's angular precise handwriting. It contained a request that, +unless otherwise engaged, the rector would walk with Mr. Wendover that +afternoon. + +Robert flung it across to Catherine. + +'Let me see,' he said, deliberating, 'have I any engagement I must +keep?' + +There was a sort of jealousy for his work within him contending with +this new fascination of the squire's company. But, honestly, there was +nothing in the way, and he went. + +That walk was the first of many. The squire had no sooner convinced +himself that young Elsmere's society did in reality provide him with a +stimulus and recreation he had been too long without, than in his +imperious wilful way he began to possess himself of it as much as +possible. He never alluded to the trivial matters which had first +separated and then united them. He worked the better, he thought the +more clearly, for these talks and walks with Elsmere, and therefore +these talks and walks became an object with him. They supplied a +long-stifled want, the scholar's want of disciples, of some form of +investment for all that heaped-up capital of thought he had been +accumulating during a lifetime. + +As for Robert, he soon felt himself so much under the spell of the +squire's strange and powerful personality that he was forced to make a +fight for it, lest this new claim should encroach upon the old ones. He +would walk when the squire liked, but three times out of four these +walks must be parish rounds, interrupted by descents into cottages and +chats in farmhouse parlours. The squire submitted. The neighbourhood +began to wonder over the strange spectacle of Mr. Wendover waiting +grimly in the winter dusk outside one of his own farmhouses while +Elsmere was inside, or patrolling a bit of lane till Elsmere should have +inquired after an invalid or beaten up a recruit for his confirmation +class, dogged the while by stealthy children, with fingers in their +mouths, who ran away in terror directly he turned. + +Rumours of this new friendship spread. One day, on the bit of road +between the Hall and the rectory, Lady Helen behind her ponies whirled +past the two men, and her arch look at Elsmere said as plain as words, +'Oh, you young wonder! what hook has served you with this leviathan?' + +On another occasion, close to Churton, a man in a cassock and cloak came +towards them. The squire put up his eyeglass. + +'Humph!' he remarked; 'do you know this merryandrew, Elsmere?' + +It was Newcome. As they passed, Robert with slightly heightened colour +gave him an affectionate nod and smile. Newcome's quick eye ran over the +companions, he responded stiffly, and his step grew more rapid. A week +or two later Robert noticed with a little prick of remorse that he had +seen nothing of Newcome for an age. If Newcome would not come to him, he +must go to Mottringham. He planned an expedition, but something happened +to prevent it. + +And Catherine? Naturally this new and most unexpected relation of +Robert's to the man who had begun by insulting him was of considerable +importance to the wife. In the first place it broke up to some extent +the exquisite _tete-a-tete_ of their home life; it encroached often upon +time that had always been hers; it filled Robert's mind more and more +with matters in which she had no concern. All these things many wives +might have resented. Catherine Elsmere resented none of them. It is +probable, of course, that she had her natural moments of regret and +comparison, when love said to itself a little sorely and hungrily, 'It +is hard to be even a fraction less to him than I once was!' But if so, +these moments never betrayed themselves in word or act. Her tender +common sense, her sweet humility, made her recognise at once Robert's +need of intellectual comradeship, isolated as he was in this remote +rural district. She knew perfectly that a clergyman's life of perpetual +giving forth becomes morbid and unhealthy if there is not some +corresponding taking in. + +If only it had not been Mr. Wendover! She marvelled over the fascination +Robert found in his dry cynical talk. She wondered that a Christian +pastor could ever forget Mr. Wendover's antecedents; that the man who +had nursed those sick children could forgive Mile End. All in all as +they were to each other, she felt for the first time that she often +understood her husband imperfectly. His mobility, his eagerness, were +sometimes now a perplexity, even a pain to her. + +It must not be imagined, however, that Robert let himself drift into +this intellectual intimacy with one of the most distinguished of +anti-Christian thinkers without reflecting on its possible consequences. +The memory of that night of misery which _The Idols of the Market-place_ +had inflicted on him was enough. He was no match in controversy for Mr. +Wendover, and he did not mean to attempt it. + +One morning the squire unexpectedly plunged into an account of a German +monograph he had just received on the subject of the Johannine +authorship of the Fourth Gospel. It was almost the first occasion on +which he had touched what may strictly be called the _materiel_ of +orthodoxy in their discussions--at any rate directly. But the book was a +striking one, and in the interest of it he had clearly forgotten his +ground a little. Suddenly the man who was walking beside him interrupted +him. + +'I think we ought to understand one another perhaps, Mr. Wendover,' +Robert said, speaking under a quick sense of oppression, but with his +usual dignity and bright courtesy. 'I know your opinions, of course, +from your books; you know what mine, as an honest man, must be, from the +position I hold. My conscience does not forbid me to discuss anything, +only--I am no match for you on points of scholarship, and I should just +like to say once for all, that to me, whatever else is true, the +religion of Christ is true. I am a Christian and a Christian minister. +Therefore, whenever we come to discuss what may be called Christian +evidence, I do it with reserves, which you would not have. I believe in +an Incarnation, a Resurrection, a Revelation. If there are literary +difficulties, I must want to smooth them away--you may want to make much +of them. We come to the matter from different points of view. You will +not quarrel with me for wanting to make it clear. It isn't as if we +differed slightly. We differ fundamentally--is it not so?' + +The squire was walking beside him with bent shoulders, the lower lip +pushed forward, as was usual with him when he was considering a matter +with close attention, but did not mean to communicate his thoughts. + +After a pause he said, with a faint inscrutable smile,-- + +'Your reminder is perfectly just. Naturally we all have our reserves. +Neither of us can be expected to stultify his own.' + +And the talk went forward again, Robert joining in more buoyantly than +ever, perhaps because he had achieved a necessary but disagreeable thing +and got done with it. + +In reality he had but been doing as the child does when it sets up its +sand-barrier against the tide. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +It was the beginning of April. The gorse was fast extending its golden +empire over the commons. On the sunny slopes of the copses primroses +were breaking through the hazel roots and beginning to gleam along the +edges of the river. On the grass commons between Murewell and Mile End +the birches rose like green clouds against the browns and purples of the +still leafless oaks and beeches. The birds were twittering and building. +Every day Robert was on the look-out for the swallows, or listening for +the first notes of the nightingale amid the bare spring coverts. + +But the spring was less perfectly delightful to him than it might have +been, for Catherine was away. Mrs. Leyburn, who was to have come south +to them in February, was attacked by bronchitis instead at Burwood and +forbidden to move, even to a warmer climate. In March, Catherine, +feeling restless and anxious about her mother, and thinking it hard that +Agnes should have all the nursing and responsibility, tore herself from +her man and her baby, and went north to Whindale for a fortnight, +leaving Robert forlorn. + +Now, however, she was in London, whither she had gone for a few days on +her way home, to meet Rose and to shop. Robert's opinion was that all +women, even St. Elizabeths, have somewhere rooted in them an inordinate +partiality for shopping; otherwise why should that operation take four +or five mortal days? Surely with a little energy, one might buy up the +whole of London in twelve hours! However, Catherine lingered, and as her +purchases were made, Robert crossly supposed it must be all Rose's +fault. He believed that Rose spent a great deal too much on dress. + +Catherine's letters, of course, were full of her sister. Rose, she said, +had come back from Berlin handsomer than ever, and playing, she +supposed, magnificently. At any rate, the letters which followed her in +shoals from Berlin flattered her to the skies, and during the three +months preceding her return Joachim himself had taken her as a pupil and +given her unusual attention. + +'And now, of course,' wrote Catherine, 'she is desperately disappointed +that mamma and Agnes cannot join her in town, as she had hoped. She does +her best, I know, poor child, to conceal it and to feel as she ought +about mamma, but I can see that the idea of an indefinite time at +Burwood is intolerable to her. As to Berlin, I think she has enjoyed it, +but she talks very scornfully of German _Schwaermerei_ and German women, +and she tells the oddest stories of her professors. With one or two of +them she seems to have been in a state of war from the beginning; but +some of them, my dear Robert, I am persuaded were just simply in love +with her! + +'I don't--no, I never _shall_ believe, that independent exciting +student's life is good for a girl. But I never say so to Rose. When she +forgets to be irritable and to feel that the world is going against her, +she is often very sweet to me, and I can't bear there should be any +conflict.' + +His next day's letter contained the following:-- + +'Are you properly amused, sir, at your wife's performances in town? Our +three concerts you have heard all about. I still can't get over them. I +go about haunted by the _seriousness_, the life-and-death interest +people throw into music. It is astonishing! And outside, as we got into +our hansom, such sights and sounds!--such starved fierce-looking men, +such ghastly women! + +'But since then Rose has been taking me into society. Yesterday +afternoon, after I wrote to you, we went to see Rose's artistic +friends--the Piersons--with whom she was staying last summer, and to-day +we have even called on Lady Charlotte Wynnstay. + +'As to Mrs. Pierson, I never saw such an odd bundle of ribbons and rags +and queer embroideries as she looked when we called. However, Rose says +that, for "an aesthete"--she despises them now herself--Mrs. Pierson has +wonderful taste, and that her wall-papers and her gowns, if I only +understood them, are not the least like those of other aesthetic persons, +but very _recherche_--which may be. She talked to Rose of nothing but +acting, especially of Madame Desforets. No one, according to her, has +anything to do with an actress's private life, or ought to take it into +account. But, Robert, dear,--an actress is a woman, and has a soul! + +'Then Lady Charlotte,--you would have laughed at our _entree_. + +'We found she was in town, and went on her "day," as she had asked Rose +to do. The room was rather dark--none of these London rooms seem to me +to have any light and air in them. The butler got our names wrong, and I +marched in first, more shy than I ever have been before in my life. Lady +Charlotte had two gentlemen with her. She evidently did not know me in +the least; she stood staring at me with her eyeglass on, and her cap so +crooked I could think of nothing but a wish to put it straight. Then +Rose followed, and in a few minutes it seemed to me as though it were +Rose who were hostess, talking to the two gentlemen and being kind to +Lady Charlotte. I am sure everybody in the room was amused by her +self-possession, Lady Charlotte included. The gentlemen stared at her a +great deal, and Lady Charlotte paid her one or two compliments on her +looks, which _I_ thought she would not have ventured to pay to any one +in her own circle. + +'We stayed about half an hour. One of the gentlemen was, I believe, a +member of the Government, an under-secretary for something, but he and +Rose and Lady Charlotte talked again of nothing but musicians and +actors. It is strange that politicians should have time to know so much +of these things. The other gentleman reminded me of Hotspur's popinjay. +I think now I made out that he wrote for the newspapers, but at the +moment I should have felt it insulting to accuse him of anything so +humdrum as an occupation in life. He discovered somehow that I had an +interest in the Church, and he asked me, leaning back in his chair and +lisping, whether I really thought "the Church could still totter on a +while in the rural dithtricts." He was informed her condition was so +"vewy dethperate." + +'Then I laughed outright, and found my tongue. Perhaps his next article +on the Church will have a few facts in it. I did my best to put some +into him. Rose at last looked round at me, astonished. But he did not +dislike me, I think. I was not impertinent to him, husband mine. If I +might have described just _one_ of your days to his high-and-mightiness! +There is no need to tell you, I think, whether I did or not. + +'Then when we got up to go, Lady Charlotte asked Rose to stay with her. +Rose explained why she couldn't, and Lady Charlotte pitied her +dreadfully for having a family, and the under-secretary said that it was +one's first duty in life to trample on one's relations, and that he +hoped nothing would prevent his hearing her play some time later in the +year. Rose said very decidedly she should be in town for the winter. +Lady Charlotte said she would have an evening specially for her, and as +I said nothing, we got away at last.' + +The letter of the following day recorded a little adventure:-- + +'I was much startled this morning. I had got Rose to come with me to the +National Gallery on our way to her dressmaker. We were standing before +Raphael's "Vigil of the Knight," when suddenly I saw Rose, who was +looking away towards the door into the long gallery, turn perfectly +white. I followed her eyes, and there, in the doorway, disappearing,--I +am almost certain,--was Mr. Langham! One cannot mistake his walk or his +profile. Before I could say a word Rose had walked away to another wall +of pictures, and when we joined again we did not speak of it. Did he see +us, I wonder, and purposely avoid us? Something made me think so. + +'Oh, I wish I could believe she had forgotten him! I am certain she +would laugh me to angry scorn if I mentioned him; but there she sits by +the fire now, while I am writing, quite drooping and pale, because she +thinks I am not noticing. If she did but love me a little more! It must +be my fault, I know. + +'Yes, as you say, Burwood may as well be shut up or let. My dear, dear +father!' + +Robert could imagine the sigh with which Catherine had laid down her +pen. Dear tender soul, with all its old-world fidelities and pieties +pure and unimpaired! He raised the signature to his lips. + +Next day Catherine came back to him. Robert had no words too opprobrious +for the widowed condition from which her return had rescued him. It +seemed to Catherine, however, that life had been very full and keen with +him since her departure! He lingered with her after supper, vowing that +his club boys might make what hay in the study they pleased; he was +going to tell her the news, whatever happened. + +'I told you of my two dinners at the Hall? The first was just +_tete-a-tete_ with the squire--oh, and Mrs. Darcy, of course. I am +always forgetting her, poor little thing, which is most ungrateful of +me. A pathetic life that, Catherine. She seems to me, in her odd way, +perpetually hungering for affection, for praise. No doubt, if she got +them, she wouldn't know what to do with them. She would just touch and +leave them as she does everything. Her talk and she are both as light +and wandering as thistledown. But still, meanwhile, she hungers, and is +never satisfied. There seems to be something peculiarly antipathetic in +her to the squire. I can't make it out. He is sometimes quite brutal to +her when she is more inconsequent than usual. I often wonder she goes on +living with him.' + +Catherine made some indignant comment. + +'Yes,' said Robert, musing. 'Yes, it is bad.' + +But Catherine thought his tone might have been more unqualified, and +marvelled again at the curious lenity of judgment he had always shown of +late towards Mr. Wendover. And all his judgments of himself and others +were generally so quick, so uncompromising! + +'On the second occasion we had Freake and Dashwood,' naming two +well-known English antiquarians. 'Very learned, very jealous, and very +snuffy; altogether "too genuine," as poor mother used to say of those +old chairs we got for the dining-room. But afterwards when we were all +smoking in the library, the squire came out of his shell and talked. I +never heard him more brilliant!' + +He paused a moment, his bright eyes looking far away from her, as though +fixed on the scene he was describing. + +'Such a mind!' he said at last with a long breath, 'such a memory! +Catherine, my book has been making great strides since you left. With +Mr. Wendover to go to, all the problems are simplified. One is saved all +false starts, all beating about the bush. What a piece of luck it was +that put one down beside such a guide, such a living storehouse of +knowledge!' + +He spoke in a glow of energy and enthusiasm. Catherine sat looking at +him wistfully, her gray eyes crossed by many varying shades of memory +and feeling. + +At last his look met hers, and the animation of it softened at once, +grew gentle. + +'Do you think I am making knowledge too much of a god just now, Madonna +mine?' he said, throwing himself down beside her. 'I have been full of +qualms myself. The squire excites one so, makes one feel as though +intellect--accumulation--were the whole of life. But I struggle against +it--I do. I go on, for instance, trying to make the squire do his social +duties--behave like "a human."' + +Catherine could not help smiling at his tone. + +'Well?' she inquired. + +He shook his head ruefully. + +'The squire is a tough customer--most men of sixty-seven with strong +wills are, I suppose. At any rate, he is like one of the Thurston +trout--sees through all my manoeuvres. But one piece of news will +astonish you, Catherine!' And he sprang up to deliver it with effect. +'Henslowe is dismissed.' + +'Henslowe dismissed!' Catherine sat properly amazed while Robert told +the story. + +The dismissal of Henslowe indeed represented the price which Mr. +Wendover had been so far willing to pay for Elsmere's society. Some +_quid pro quo_ there must be--that he was prepared to admit--considering +their relative positions as squire and parson. But, as Robert shrewdly +suspected, not one of his wiles so far had imposed on the master of +Murewell. He had his own sarcastic smiles over them, and over Elsmere's +pastoral _naivete_ in general. The evidences of the young rector's power +and popularity were, however, on the whole, pleasant to Mr. Wendover. If +Elsmere had his will with all the rest of the world, Mr. Wendover knew +perfectly well who it was that at the present moment had his will with +Elsmere. He had found a great piquancy in this shaping of a mind more +intellectually eager and pliant than any he had yet come across among +younger men; perpetual food too, for his sense of irony, in the +intellectual contradictions, wherein Elsmere's developing ideas and +information were now, according to the squire, involving him at every +turn. + +'His religious foundations are gone already, if he did but know it,' Mr. +Wendover grimly remarked to himself one day about this time, 'but he +will take so long finding it out that the results are not worth +speculating on.' + +Cynically assured, therefore, at bottom of his own power with this +ebullient nature, the squire was quite prepared to make external +concessions, or, as we have said, to pay his price. It annoyed him that +when Elsmere would press for allotment land, or a new institute, or a +better supply of water for the village, it was not open to him merely to +give _carte blanche_, and refer his petitioner to Henslowe. Robert's +opinion of Henslowe, and Henslowe's now more cautious but still +incessant hostility to the rector, were patent at last even to the +squire. The situation was worrying and wasted time. It must be changed. + +So one morning he met Elsmere with a bundle of letters in his hand, +calmly informed him that Henslowe had been sent about his business, and +that it would be a kindness if Mr. Elsmere would do him the favour of +looking through some applications for the vacant post just received. + +Elsmere, much taken by surprise, felt at first as it was natural for an +over-sensitive, over-scrupulous man to feel. His enemy had been given +into his hand, and instead of victory he could only realise that he had +brought a man to ruin. + +'He has a wife and children,' he said quickly, looking at the squire. + +'Of course I have pensioned him,' replied the squire impatiently; +'otherwise I imagine he would be hanging round our necks to the end of +the chapter.' + +There was something in the careless indifference of the tone which sent +a shiver through Elsmere. After all, this man had served the squire for +fifteen years, and it was not Mr. Wendover who had much to complain of. + +No one with a conscience could have held out a finger to keep Henslowe +in his post. But though Elsmere took the letters and promised to give +them his best attention, as soon as he got home he made himself +irrationally miserable over the matter. It was not his fault that, from +the moment of his arrival in the parish, Henslowe had made him the +target of a vulgar and embittered hostility, and so far as he had struck +out in return it had been for the protection of persecuted and +defenceless creatures. But all the same, he could not get the thought of +the man's collapse and humiliation out of his mind. How at his age was +he to find other work, and how was he to endure life at Murewell without +his comfortable house, his smart gig, his easy command of spirits, and +the cringing of the farmers? + +Tormented by the sordid misery of the situation almost as though it had +been his own, Elsmere ran down impulsively in the evening to the agent's +house. Could nothing be done to assure the man that he was not really +his enemy, and that anything the parson's influence and the parson's +money could do to help him to a more decent life, and work which offered +fewer temptations and less power over human beings, should be done? + +It need hardly be said that the visit was a complete failure. Henslowe, +who was drinking hard, no sooner heard Elsmere's voice in the little +hall than he dashed open the door which separated them, and, in a +paroxysm of drunken rage, hurled at Elsmere all the venomous stuff he +had been garnering up for months against some such occasion. The vilest +abuse, the foulest charges--there was nothing that the maddened sot, now +fairly unmasked, denied himself. Elsmere, pale and erect, tried to make +himself heard. In vain. Henslowe was physically incapable of taking in a +word. + +At last the agent, beside himself, made a rush, his three untidy +children, who had been hanging open-mouthed in the background, set up a +howl of terror, and his Scotch wife, more pinched and sour than ever, +who had been so far a gloomy spectator of the scene, interposed. + +'Have doon wi' ye,' she said sullenly, putting out a long bony arm in +front of her husband, 'or I'll just lock oop that brandy where ye'll naw +find it if ye pull the house doon. Now, sir,' turning to Elsmere, 'would +ye jest be going? Ye mean it weel, I daur say, but ye've doon yer wark, +and ye maun leave it.' + +And she motioned him out, not without a sombre dignity. Elsmere went +home crestfallen. The enthusiast is a good deal too apt to +under-estimate the stubbornness of moral fact, and these rebuffs have +their stern uses for character. + +'They intend to go on living here, I am told,' Elsmere said, as he wound +up the story, 'and as Henslowe is still churchwarden, he may do us a +world of mischief yet. However, I think that wife will keep him in +order. No doubt vengeance would be sweet to her as to him, but she has a +shrewd eye, poor soul, to the squire's remittances. It is a wretched +business, and I don't take a man's hate easily, Catherine!--though it +may be a folly to say so.' + +Catherine was irresponsive. The Old Testament element in her found a +lawful satisfaction in Henslowe's fall, and a wicked man's hatred, +according to her, mattered only to himself. The squire's conduct, on the +other hand, made her uneasily proud. To her, naturally, it simply meant +that he was falling under Robert's spell. So much the better for him, +but---- + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +That same afternoon Robert started on a walk to a distant farm, where +one of his Sunday-school boys lay recovering from rheumatic fever. The +rector had his pocket full of articles--a story-book in one, a puzzle +map in the other--destined for Master Carter's amusement. On the way he +was to pick up Mr. Wendover at the park gates. + +It was a delicious April morning. A soft west wind blew through leaf and +grass-- + + 'Driving sweet buds, like flocks, to feed in air.' + +The spring was stirring everywhere, and Robert raced along, feeling in +every vein a life, an ebullience akin to that of nature. As he neared +the place of meeting it occurred to him that the squire had been +unusually busy lately, unusually silent and absent too on their walks. +What _was_ he always at work on? Robert had often inquired of him as to +the nature of those piles of proof and manuscript with which his table +was littered. The squire had never given any but the most general +answer, and had always changed the subject. There was an invincible +_personal_ reserve about him which, through all his walks and talks with +Elsmere, had never as yet broken down. He would talk of other men and +other men's labours by the hour, but not of his own. Elsmere reflected +on the fact, mingling with the reflection a certain humorous scorn of +his own constant openness and readiness to take counsel with the world. + +'However, _his_ book isn't a mere excuse, as Langham's is,' Elsmere +inwardly remarked. 'Langham, in a certain sense, plays even with +learning; Mr. Wendover plays at nothing.' + +By the way, he had a letter from Langham in his pocket much more +cheerful and human than usual. Let him look through it again. + +Not a word, of course, of that National Gallery experience!--a +circumstance, however, which threw no light on it either way. + +'I find myself a good deal reconciled to life by this migration of +mine,' wrote Langham. 'Now that my enforced duties to them are all done +with, my fellow-creatures seem to me much more decent fellows than +before. The great stir of London, in which, unless I please, I have no +part whatever, attracts me more than I could have thought possible. No +one in these noisy streets has any rightful claim upon me. I have cut +away at one stroke lectures, and Boards of Studies, and tutors' +meetings, and all the rest of the wearisome Oxford make-believe, and the +creature left behind feels lighter and nimbler than he has felt for +years. I go to concerts and theatres; I look at the people in the +streets; I even begin to take an outsider's interest in social +questions, in the puny dykes which well-meaning people are trying to +raise all round us against the encroaching, devastating labour-troubles +of the future. By dint of running away from life, I may end by cutting a +much more passable figure in it than before. Be consoled, my dear +Elsmere; reconsider your remonstrances.' + + * * * * * + +There, under the great cedar by the gate, stood Mr. Wendover. Illumined +as he was by the spring sunshine, he struck Elsmere as looking unusually +shrunken and old. And yet under the look of physical exhaustion there +was a new serenity, almost a peacefulness of expression, which gave the +whole man a different aspect. + +'Don't take me far,' he said abruptly, as they started. 'I have not got +the energy for it. I have been over-working, and must go away.' + +'I have been sure of it for some time,' said Elsmere warmly. 'You ought +to have a long rest. But mayn't I know, Mr. Wendover, before you take +it, what this great task is you have been toiling at? Remember, you have +never told me a word of it. + +And Elsmere's smile had in it a touch of most friendly reproach. Fatigue +had left the scholar relaxed, comparatively defenceless. His sunk and +wrinkled eyes lit up with a smile, faint indeed, but of unwonted +softness. + +'A task indeed,' he said with a sigh, 'the task of a lifetime. To-day I +finished the second third of it. Probably before the last section is +begun some interloping German will have stepped down before me; it is +the way of the race! But for the moment there is the satisfaction of +having come to an end of some sort--a natural halt, at any rate.' + +Elsmere's eyes were still interrogative. 'Oh, well,' said the squire +hastily, 'it is a book I planned just after I took my doctor's degree at +Berlin. It struck me then as the great want of modern scholarship. It is +a History of Evidence, or rather, more strictly, "A History of +_Testimony_."' + +Robert started. The library flashed into his mind, and Langham's figure +in the long gray coat sitting on the stool. + +'A great subject,' he said slowly, 'a magnificent subject. How have you +conceived it, I wonder?' + +'Simply from the standpoint of evolution, of development. The +philosophical value of the subject is enormous. You must have considered +it, of course; every historian must. But few people have any idea in +detail of the amount of light which the history of human witness in the +world, systematically carried through, throws on the history of the +human mind; that is to say, on the history of ideas.' + +The squire paused, his keen scrutinising look dwelling on the face +beside him, as though to judge whether he were understood. + +'Oh, true!' cried Elsmere; 'most true. Now I know what vague want it is +that has been haunting me for months----' + +He stopped short, his look, aglow with all the young thinker's ardour, +fixed on the squire. + +The squire received the outburst in silence--a somewhat ambiguous +silence. + +'But go on,' said Elsmere; 'please go on.' + +'Well, you remember,' said the squire slowly, 'that when Tractarianism +began I was for a time one of Newman's victims. Then, when Newman +departed, I went over body and bones to the Liberal reaction which +followed his going. In the first ardour of what seemed to me a release +from slavery I migrated to Berlin, in search of knowledge which there +was no getting in England, and there, with the taste of a dozen aimless +theological controversies still in my mouth, this idea first took hold +of me. It was simply this:--Could one through an exhaustive examination +of human records, helped by modern physiological and mental science, get +at the conditions, physical and mental, which govern the greater or +lesser correspondence between human witness and the fact it reports?' + +'A giant's task!' cried Robert: 'hardly conceivable!' + +The squire smiled slightly--the smile of a man who looks back with +indulgent half-melancholy satire on the rash ambitions of his youth. + +'Naturally,' he resumed, 'I soon saw I must restrict myself to European +testimony, and that only up to the Renaissance. To do that, of course, I +had to dig into the East, to learn several Oriental languages--Sanskrit +among them. Hebrew I already knew. Then, when I had got my languages, I +began to work steadily through the whole mass of existing records, +sifting and comparing. It is thirty years since I started. Fifteen years +ago I finished the section dealing with classical antiquity--with India, +Persia, Egypt, and Judaea. To-day I have put the last strokes to a +History of Testimony from the Christian era down to the sixth +century--from Livy to Gregory of Tours, from Augustus to Justinian.' + +Elsmere turned to him with wonder, with a movement of irrepressible +homage. Thirty years of unbroken solitary labour for one end, one cause! +In our hurried fragmentary life, a purpose of this tenacity, this power +of realising itself, strikes the imagination. + +'And your two books?' + +'Were a mere interlude,' replied the squire briefly. 'After the +completion of the first part of my work, there were certain deposits +left in me which it was a relief to get rid of, especially in connection +with my renewed impressions of England,' he added drily. + +Elsmere was silent, thinking this then was the explanation of the +squire's minute and exhaustive knowledge of the early Christian +centuries, a knowledge into which--apart from certain forbidden +topics--he had himself dipped so freely. Suddenly, as he mused, there +awoke in the young man a new hunger, a new unmanageable impulse towards +frankness of speech. All his nascent intellectual powers were alive and +clamorous. For the moment his past reticences and timidities looked to +him absurd. The mind rebelled against the barriers it had been rearing +against itself. It rushed on to sweep them away, crying out that all +this shrinking from free discussion had been at bottom 'a mere treason +to faith.' + +'Naturally, Mr. Wendover,' he said at last, and his tone had a +half-defiant, half-nervous energy, 'you have given your best attention +all these years to the Christian problems.' + +'Naturally,' said the squire drily. Then, as his companion still seemed +to wait, keenly expectant, he resumed, with something cynical in the +smile which accompanied the words,-- + +'But I have no wish to infringe our convention.' + +'A convention was it?' replied Elsmere, flushing. 'I think I only wanted +to make my own position clear and prevent misunderstanding. But it is +impossible that I should be indifferent to the results of thirty years +such work as you can give to so great a subject.' + +The squire drew himself up a little under his cloak and seemed to +consider. His tired eyes, fixed on the spring lane before them, saw in +reality only the long retrospects of the past. Then a light broke in +them, transformed them--a light of battle. He turned to the man beside +him, and his sharp look swept over him from head to foot. Well, if he +would have it, let him have it. He had been contemptuously content so +far to let the subject be. But Mr. Wendover, in spite of his philosophy, +had never been proof all his life against an anti-clerical instinct +worthy almost of a Paris municipal councillor. In spite of his fatigue +there woke in him a kind of cruel whimsical pleasure at the notion of +speaking, once for all, what he conceived to be the whole bare truth to +this clever attractive dreamer, to the young fellow who thought he could +condescend to science from the standpoint of the Christian miracles! + +'Results?' he said interrogatively. 'Well, as you will understand, it is +tolerably difficult to summarise such a mass at a moment's notice. But I +can give you the lines of my last volumes, if it would interest you to +hear them.' + +That walk prolonged itself far beyond Mr. Wendover's original intention. +There was something in the situation, in Elsmere's comments, or +arguments, or silences, which after a while banished the scholar's sense +of exhaustion and made him oblivious of the country distances. No man +feels another's soul quivering and struggling in his grasp without +excitement, let his nerve and his self-restraint be what they may. + +As for Elsmere, that hour and a half, little as he realised it at the +time, represented the turning-point of life. He listened, he suggested, +he put in an acute remark here, an argument there, such as the squire +had often difficulty in meeting. Every now and then the inner protest of +an attacked faith would break through in words so full of poignancy, in +imagery so dramatic, that the squire's closely-knit sentences would be +for the moment wholly disarranged. On the whole, he proved himself no +mean guardian of all that was most sacred to himself and to Catherine, +and the squire's intellectual respect for him rose considerably. + +All the same, by the end of their conversation that first period of +happy unclouded youth we have been considering was over for poor +Elsmere. In obedience to certain inevitable laws and instincts of the +mind, he had been for months tempting his fate, inviting catastrophe. +None the less did the first sure approaches of that catastrophe fill him +with a restless resistance which was in itself anguish. + +As to the squire's talk, it was simply the outpouring of one of the +richest, most sceptical, and most highly-trained of minds on the subject +of Christian origins. At no previous period of his life would it have +greatly affected Elsmere. But now at every step the ideas, impressions, +arguments bred in him by his months of historical work and ordinary +converse with the squire rushed in, as they had done once before, to +cripple resistance, to check an emerging answer, to justify Mr. +Wendover. + +We may quote a few fragmentary utterances taken almost at random from +the long wrestle of the two men, for the sake of indicating the main +lines of a bitter after-struggle. + + 'Testimony like every other human product has _developed_. + Man's power of apprehending and recording what he sees and + hears has grown from less to more, from weaker to stronger, + like any other of his faculties, just as the reasoning powers + of the cave-dweller have developed into the reasoning powers + of a Kant. What one wants is the ordered proof of this, and + it can be got from history and experience.' + + * * * * * + + 'To plunge into the Christian period without having first + cleared the mind as to what is meant in history and + literature by "the critical method," which in history may be + defined as the "science of what is credible," and in + literature as "the science of what is rational," is to invite + fiasco. The theologian in such a state sees no obstacle to + accepting an arbitrary list of documents with all the strange + stuff they may contain, and declaring them to be sound + historical material, while he applies to all the strange + stuff of a similar kind surrounding them the most rigorous + principles of modern science. Or he has to make believe that + the reasoning processes exhibited in the speeches of the + Acts, in certain passages of St. Paul's Epistles, or in the + Old Testament quotations in the Gospels, have a validity for + the mind of the nineteenth century, when in truth they are + the imperfect, half-childish products of the mind of the + first century, of quite insignificant or indirect value to + the historian of fact, of enormous value to the historian of + _testimony_ and its varieties.' + + * * * * * + + 'Suppose, for instance, before I begin to deal with the + Christian story, and the earliest Christian development, I + try to make out beforehand what are the moulds, the channels + into which the testimony of the time must run. I look for + these moulds, of course, in the dominant ideas, the + intellectual preconceptions and preoccupations existing when + the period begins. + + 'In the first place, I shall find present in the age which + saw the birth of Christianity, as in so many other ages, a + universal preconception in favour of miracle--that is to say, + of deviations from the common norm of experience, governing + the work of _all_ men of _all_ schools. Very well, allow for + it then. Read the testimony of the period in the light of it. + Be prepared for the inevitable differences between it and the + testimony of your own day. The witness of the time is not + true, nor, in the strict sense, false. It is merely + incompetent, half-trained, pre-scientific, but all through + perfectly natural. The wonder would have been to have had a + life of Christ without miracles. The air teems with them. The + East is full of Messiahs. Even a Tacitus is superstitious. + Even a Vespasian works miracles. Even a Nero cannot die, but + fifty years after his death is still looked for as the + inaugurator of a millennium of horror. The Resurrection is + partly invented, partly imagined, partly ideally true--in any + case wholly intelligible and natural, as a product of the + age, when once you have the key of that age. + + 'In the next place, look for the preconceptions that have a + definite historical origin; those, for instance, flowing from + the pre-Christian, apocalyptic literature of the Jews, taking + the Maccabean legend of Daniel as the centre of + inquiry--those flowing from Alexandrian Judaism and the + school of Philo--those flowing from the Palestinian schools + of exegesis. Examine your synoptic gospels, your Gospel of + St. John, your Apocalypse, in the light of these. You have no + other chance of understanding them. But so examined, they + fall into place, become explicable and rational; such + material as science can make full use of. The doctrine of the + Divinity of Christ, Christian eschatology, and Christian + views of prophecy will also have found _their_ place in a + sound historical scheme!' + + * * * * * + + 'It is discreditable now for the man of intelligence to + refuse to read his Livy in the light of his Mommsen. My + object has been to help in making it discreditable to him to + refuse to read his Christian documents in the light of a + trained scientific criticism. We shall have made some + positive advance in rationality when the man who is perfectly + capable of dealing sanely with legend in one connection, and, + in another, will insist on confounding it with history + proper, cannot do so any longer without losing caste, without + falling _ipso facto_ out of court with men of education. It + is enough for a man of letters if he has helped ever so + little in the final staking out of the boundaries between + reason and unreason!' + + +And so on. These are mere ragged gleanings from an ample store. The +discussion in reality ranged over the whole field of history, plunged +into philosophy, and into the subtlest problems of mind. At the end of +it, after he had been conscious for many bitter moments of that same +constriction of heart which had overtaken him once before at Mr. +Wendover's hands, the religious passion in Elsmere once more rose with +sudden stubborn energy against the iron negations pressed upon it. + +'I will not fight you any more, Mr. Wendover,' he said, with his moved +flashing look. 'I am perfectly conscious that my own mental experience +of the last two years has made it necessary to re-examine some of these +intellectual foundations of faith. But as to the faith itself, that is +its own witness. It does not depend, after all, upon anything external, +but upon the living voice of the Eternal in the soul of man!' + +Involuntarily his pace quickened. The whole man was gathered into one +great, useless, pitiful defiance, and the outer world was forgotten. The +squire kept up with difficulty a while, a faint glimmer of sarcasm +playing now and then round the straight thin-lipped mouth. Then suddenly +he stopped. + +'No, let it be. Forget me and my book, Elsmere. Everything can be got +out of in this world. By the way, we seem to have reached the ends of +the earth. Those are the new Mile End cottages, I believe. With your +leave, I'll sit down in one of them, and send to the Hall for the +carriage.' + +Elsmere's repentant attention was drawn at once to his companion. + +'I am a selfish idiot,' he said hotly, 'to have led you into +over-walking and over-talking like this.' + +The squire made some short reply and instantly turned the matter off. +The momentary softness which had marked his meeting with Elsmere had +entirely vanished, leaving only the Mr. Wendover of every day, who was +merely made awkward and unapproachable by the slightest touch of +personal sympathy. No living being, certainly not his foolish little +sister, had any _right_ to take care of the squire. And as the signs of +age became more apparent, this one fact had often worked powerfully on +the sympathies of Elsmere's chivalrous youth, though as yet he had been +no more capable than any one else of breaking through the squire's +haughty reserve. + +As they turned down the newly-worn track to the cottages, whereof the +weekly progress had been for some time the delight of Elsmere's heart, +they met old Meyrick in his pony-carriage. He stopped his shambling +steed at sight of the pair. The bleared spectacled eyes lit up, the prim +mouth broke into a smile which matched the April sun. + +'Well, Squire; well, Mr. Elsmere, are you going to have a look at those +places? Never saw such palaces. I only hope I may end my days in +anything so good. Will you give me a lease, Squire?' + +Mr. Wendover's deep eyes took a momentary survey, half indulgent, half +contemptuous, of the naive, awkward-looking old creature in the +pony-carriage. Then, without troubling to find an answer, he went his +way. + +Robert stayed chatting a moment or two, knowing perfectly well what +Meyrick's gay garrulity meant. A sharp and bitter sense of the ironies +of life swept across him. The squire humanised, influenced by him--he +knew that was the image in Meyrick's mind; he remembered with a quiet +scorn its presence in his own. And never, never had he felt his own +weakness and the strength of that grim personality so much as at that +instant. + +That evening Catherine noticed an unusual silence and depression in +Robert. She did her best to cheer it away, to get at the cause of it. In +vain. At last, with her usual wise tenderness, she left him alone, +conscious herself, as she closed the study door behind her, of a +momentary dreariness of soul, coming she knew not whence, and only +dispersed by the instinctive upward leap of prayer. + +Robert was no sooner alone than he put down his pipe and sat brooding +over the fire. All the long debate of the afternoon began to fight +itself out again in the shrinking mind. Suddenly, in his restless pain, +a thought occurred to him. He had been much struck in the squire's +conversation by certain allusions to arguments drawn from the Book of +Daniel. It was not a subject with which Robert had any great +familiarity. He remembered his Pusey dimly, certain Divinity lectures, +an article of Westcott's. + +He raised his hand quickly and took down the monograph on _The Use of +the Old Testament in the New_, which the squire had sent him in the +earliest days of their acquaintance. A secret dread and repugnance had +held him from it till now. Curiously enough it was not he but Catherine, +as we shall see, who had opened it first. Now, however, he got it down +and turned to the section on Daniel. + +It was a change of conviction on the subject of the date and authorship +of this strange product of Jewish patriotism in the second century +before Christ that drove M. Renan out of the Church of Rome. 'For the +Catholic Church to confess,' he says in his _Souvenirs_, 'that Daniel is +an apocryphal book of the time of the Maccabees, would be to confess +that she had made a mistake; if she had made this mistake, she may have +made others; she is no longer divinely inspired.' + +The Protestant, who is in truth more bound to the Book of Daniel than M. +Renan, has various ways of getting over the difficulties raised against +the supposed authorship of the book by modern criticism. Robert found +all these ways enumerated in the brilliant and vigorous pages of the +book before him. + +In the first place, like the orthodox Saint-Sulpicien, the Protestant +meets the critic with a flat _non possumus_. 'Your arguments are useless +and irrelevant,' he says in effect. 'However plausible may be your +objections, the Book of Daniel is what it professes to be, _because_ our +Lord quoted it in such a manner as to distinctly recognise its +authority. The All-True and All-Knowing cannot have made a mistake, nor +can He have expressly led His disciples to regard as genuine and Divine, +prophecies which were in truth the inventions of an ingenious romancer.' + +But the liberal Anglican--the man, that is to say, whose logical sense +is inferior to his sense of literary probabilities--proceeds quite +differently. + +'Your arguments are perfectly just,' he says to the critic; 'the book is +a patriotic fraud, of no value except to the historian of literature. +But how do you know that our Lord quoted it as _true_ in the strict +sense? In fact He quoted it as _literature_, as a Greek might have +quoted Homer, as an Englishman might quote Shakespeare.' + +And many a harassed Churchman takes refuge forthwith in the new +explanation. It is very difficult, no doubt, to make the passages in the +Gospels agree with it, but at the bottom of his mind there is a saving +silent scorn for the old theories of inspiration. He admits to himself +that probably Christ was not correctly reported in the matter. + +Then appears the critic, having no interests to serve, no _parti pris_ +to defend, and states the matter calmly, dispassionately, as it appears +to him. 'No reasonable man,' says the ablest German exponent of the Book +of Daniel, 'can doubt'--that this most interesting piece of writing +belongs to the year 169 or 170 B.C. It was written to stir up the +courage and patriotism of the Jews, weighed down by the persecutions of +Antiochus Epiphanes. It had enormous vogue. It inaugurated a new +Apocalyptic literature. And clearly the youth of Jesus of Nazareth was +vitally influenced by it. It entered into his thought, it helped to +shape his career. + +But Elsmere did not trouble himself much with the critic, as at any rate +he was reported by the author of the book before him. Long before the +critical case was reached, he had flung the book heavily from him. The +mind accomplished its further task without help from outside. In the +stillness of the night there rose up weirdly before him a whole new +mental picture--effacing, pushing out, innumerable older images of +thought. It was the image of a purely human Christ--a purely human, +explicable, yet always wonderful Christianity. It broke his heart, but +the spell of it was like some dream-country wherein we see all the +familiar objects of life in new relations and perspectives. He gazed +upon it fascinated, the wailing underneath checked a while by the +strange beauty and order of the emerging spectacle. Only a little while! +Then with a groan Elsmere looked up, his eyes worn, his lips white and +set. + +'I must face it--I must face it through! God help me!' + +A slight sound overhead in Catherine's room sent a sudden spasm of +feeling through the young face. He threw himself down, hiding from his +own foresight of what was to be. + +'My darling, my darling! But she shall know nothing of it--yet.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +And he did face it through. + +The next three months were the bitterest months of Elsmere's life. They +were marked by anguished mental struggle, by a consciousness of painful +separation from the soul nearest to his own, and by a constantly +increasing sense of oppression, of closing avenues and narrowing +alternatives, which for weeks together seemed to hold the mind in a grip +whence there was no escape. + +That struggle was not hurried and embittered by the bodily presence of +the squire. Mr. Wendover went off to Italy a few days after the +conversation we have described. But though he was not present in the +flesh the great book of his life was in Elsmere's hands, he had formally +invited Elsmere's remarks upon it; and the air of Murewell seemed still +echoing with his sentences, still astir with his thoughts. That curious +instinct of pursuit, that avid imperious wish to crush an irritating +resistance, which his last walk with Elsmere had first awakened in him +with any strength, persisted. He wrote to Robert from abroad, and the +proud fastidious scholar had never taken more pains with anything than +with those letters. + +Robert might have stopped them, might have cast the whole matter from +him with one resolute effort. In other relations he had will enough and +to spare. + +Was it an unexpected weakness of fibre that made it impossible?--that +had placed him in this way at the squire's disposal? Half the world +would answer yes. Might not the other half plead that in every +generation there is a minority of these mobile, impressionable, +defenceless natures, who are ultimately at the mercy of experience, at +the mercy of thought, at the mercy (shall we say?) of truth; and that, +in fact, it is from this minority that all human advance comes? + +During these three miserable months it cannot be said--poor +Elsmere!--that he attempted any systematic study of Christian evidence. +His mind was too much torn, his heart too sore. He pounced feverishly on +one test point after another, on the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the +relation of the New Testament to the thoughts and beliefs of its time, +the Gospel of St. John, the evidence as to the Resurrection, the +intellectual and moral conditions surrounding the formation of the +Canon. His mind swayed hither and thither, driven from each +resting-place in turn by the pressure of some new difficulty. And--let +it be said again--all through, the only constant element in the whole +dismal process was his trained historical sense. If he had gone through +this conflict at Oxford, for instance, he would have come out of it +unscathed: for he would simply have remained throughout it ignorant of +the true problems at issue. As it was, the keen instrument he had +sharpened so laboriously on indifferent material now ploughed its +agonising way, bit by bit, into the most intimate recesses of thought +and faith. + +Much of the actual struggle he was able to keep from Catherine's view, +as he had vowed to himself to keep it. For after the squire's departure +Mrs. Darcy too went joyously up to London to flutter a while through the +golden alleys of Mayfair; and Elsmere was left once more in undisturbed +possession of the Murewell library. There for a while on every day--oh, +pitiful relief!--he could hide himself from the eyes he loved. + +But, after all, married love allows of nothing but the shallowest +concealments. Catherine had already had one or two alarms. Once, in +Robert's study, among a tumbled mass of books he had pulled out in +search of something missing, and which she was putting in order, she had +come across that very book on the Prophecies which at a critical moment +had so deeply affected Elsmere. It lay open, and Catherine was caught by +the heading of a section: 'The Messianic Idea.' + +She began to read, mechanically at first, and read about a page. That +page so shocked a mind accustomed to a purely traditional and mystical +interpretation of the Bible that the book dropped abruptly from her +hand, and she stood a moment by her husband's table, her fine face pale +and frowning. + +She noticed, with bitterness, Mr. Wendover's name on the title-page. Was +it right for Robert to have such books? Was it wise, was it prudent, for +the Christian to measure himself against such antagonism as this? She +wrestled painfully with the question. 'Oh, but I can't understand,' she +said to herself with an almost agonised energy. 'It is I who am timid, +faithless! He _must_--he _must_--know what they say; he must have gone +through the dark places if he is to carry others through them.' + +So she stilled and trampled on the inward protest. She yearned to speak +of it to Robert, but something withheld her. In her passionate wifely +trust she could not bear to seem to question the use he made of his time +and thought; and a delicate moral scruple warned her she might easily +allow her dislike of the Wendover friendship to lead her into +exaggeration and injustice. + +But the stab of that moment recurred--dealt now by one slight incident, +now by another. And after the squire's departure Catherine suddenly +realised that the whole atmosphere of their home-life was changed. + +Robert was giving himself to his people with a more scrupulous energy +than ever. Never had she seen him so pitiful, so full of heart for every +human creature. His sermons, with their constant imaginative dwelling on +the earthly life of Jesus, affected her now with a poignancy, a pathos, +which were almost unbearable. And his tenderness to _her_ was beyond +words. But with that tenderness there was constantly mixed a note of +remorse, a painful self-depreciation which she could hardly notice in +speech, but which every now and then wrung her heart. And in his parish +work he often showed a depression, an irritability, entirely new to her. +He who had always the happiest power of forgetting to-morrow all the +rubs of to-day, seemed now quite incapable of saving himself and his +cheerfulness in the old ways, nay, had developed a capacity for sheer +worry she had never seen in him before. And meanwhile all the old +gossips of the place spoke their mind freely to Catherine on the subject +of the rector's looks, coupling their remarks with a variety of +prescriptions, out of which Robert did sometimes manage to get one of +his old laughs. His sleeplessness, too, which had always been a +constitutional tendency, had become now so constant and wearing that +Catherine began to feel a nervous hatred of his book-work, and of those +long mornings at the Hall; a passionate wish to put an end to it, and +carry him away for a holiday. + +But he would not hear of the holiday, and he could hardly bear any talk +of himself. And Catherine had been brought up in a school of feeling +which bade love be very scrupulous, very delicate, and which recognised +in the strongest way the right of every human soul to its own privacy, +its own reserves. That something definite troubled him she was certain. +What it was he clearly avoided telling her, and she could not hurt him +by impatience. + +He would tell her soon--when it was right--she cried pitifully to +herself. Meantime both suffered, she not knowing why, clinging to each +other the while more passionately than ever. + +One night, however, coming down in her dressing-gown into the study in +search of a _Christian Year_ she had left behind her, she found Robert +with papers strewn before him, his arms on the table and his head laid +down upon them. He looked up as she came in, and the expression of his +eyes drew her to him irresistibly. + +'Were you asleep, Robert? Do come to bed!' + +He sat up, and with a pathetic gesture held out his arms to her. She +came on to his knee, putting her white arms round his neck, while he +leant his head against her breast. + +'Are you tired with all your walking to-day?' she said presently, a pang +at her heart. + +'I am tired,' he said, 'but not with walking.' + +'Does your book worry you? You shouldn't work so hard, Robert--you +shouldn't!' + +He started. + +'Don't talk of it. Don't let us talk or think at all, only feel!' + +And he tightened his arms round her, happy once more for a moment in +this environment of a perfect love. There was silence for a few moments, +Catherine feeling more and more disturbed and anxious. + +'Think of your mountains,' he said presently, his eyes still pressed +against her, 'of High Fell and the moonlight and the house where Mary +Backhouse died. Oh! Catherine, I see you still, and shall always see +you, as I saw you then, my angel of healing and of grace!' + +'I too have been thinking of her to-night,' said Catherine softly, 'and +of the walk to Shanmoor. This evening in the garden it seemed to me as +though there were Westmoreland scents in the air! I was haunted by a +vision of bracken, and rocks, and sheep browsing up the fell slopes.' + +'Oh for a breath of the wind on High Fell!' cried Robert,--it was so new +to her, the dear voice with this accent in it of yearning depression! 'I +want more of the spirit of the mountains, their serenity, their +strength. Say me that Duddon sonnet you used to say to me there, as you +said it to me that last Sunday before our wedding, when we walked up the +Shanmoor road to say good-bye to that blessed spot. Oh! how I sit and +think of it sometimes, when life seems to be going crookedly, that rock +on the fell-side where I found you, and caught you, and snared you, my +dove, for ever.' + +And Catherine, whose mere voice was as balm to this man of many +impulses, repeated to him, softly in the midnight silence, those noble +lines in which Wordsworth has expressed, with the reserve and yet the +strength of the great poet, the loftiest yearning of the purest hearts-- + + 'Enough, if something from our hand have power + To live and move, and serve the future hour, + And if, as towards the silent tomb we go, + Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, + We feel that we are greater than we know.' + +'He has divined it all,' said Robert, drawing a long breath when she +stopped, which seemed to relax the fibres of the inner man, 'the fever +and the fret of human thought, the sense of littleness, of impotence, of +evanescence--and he has soothed it all!' + +'Oh, not all, not all!' cried Catherine, her look kindling, and her rare +passion breaking through; 'how little in comparison!' + +For her thoughts were with him of whom it was said, _'He needed not that +any one should bear witness concerning man, for he knew what was in +man_.' But Robert's only response was silence and a kind of quivering +sigh. + +'Robert!' she cried, pressing her cheek against his temple, 'tell me, my +dear, dear husband, what it is troubles you. Something does--I am +certain--certain!' + +'Catherine--wife--beloved!' he said to her, after another pause, in a +tone of strange tension she never forgot; 'generations of men and women +have known what it is to be led spiritually into the desert, into that +outer wilderness where even the Lord was "tempted." What am I that I +should claim to escape it? And you cannot come through it with me, my +darling--no, not even you! It is loneliness--it is solitariness +itself----' and he shuddered. 'But pray for me--pray that _He_ may be +with me, and that at the end there may be light!' + +He pressed her to him convulsively, then gently released her. His solemn +eyes, fixed upon her as she stood there beside him, seemed to forbid +her to say a word more. She stooped; she laid her lips to his; it was a +meeting of soul with soul; then she went softly out, breaking the quiet +of the house by a stifled sob as she passed upstairs. + +Oh! but at last she thought she understood him. She had not passed her +girlhood, side by side with a man of delicate fibre, of melancholy and +scrupulous temperament, and within hearing of all the natural interests +of a deeply religious mind, religious biography, religious psychology, +and--within certain sharply defined limits--religious speculation, +without being brought face to face with the black possibilities of +'doubts' and 'difficulties' as barriers in the Christian path. Has not +almost every Christian of illustrious excellence been tried and humbled +by them? Catherine, looking back upon her own youth, could remember +certain crises of religious melancholy, during which she had often +dropped off to sleep at night on a pillow wet with tears. They had +passed away quickly, and for ever. But she went back to them now, +straining her eyes through the darkness of her own past, recalling her +father's days of spiritual depression, and the few difficult words she +had sometimes heard from him as to those bitter times of religious +dryness and hopelessness, by which God chastens from time to time His +most faithful and heroic souls. A half-contempt awoke in her for the +unclouded serenity and confidence of her own inner life. If her own +spiritual experience had gone deeper, she told herself with the +strangest self-blame, she would have been able now to understand Robert +better--to help him more. + +She thought as she lay awake after those painful moments in the study, +the tears welling up slowly in the darkness, of many things that had +puzzled her in the past. She remembered the book she had seen on his +table; her thoughts travelled over his months of intercourse with the +squire; and the memory of Mr. Newcome's attitude towards the man whom he +conceived to be his Lord's adversary, as contrasted with Robert's, +filled her with a shrinking pain she dared not analyse. + +Still all through, her feeling towards her husband was in the main akin +to that of the English civilian at home towards English soldiers abroad, +suffering and dying that England may be great. _She_ had sheltered +herself all her life from those deadly forces of unbelief which exist in +English society, by a steady refusal to know what, however, any educated +university man must perforce know. But such a course of action was +impossible for Robert. He had been forced into the open, into the full +tide of the Lord's battle. The chances of that battle are many; and the +more courage the more risk of wounds and pain. But the great Captain +knows--the great Captain does not forget His own! + +For never, never had she the smallest doubt as to the issue of this +sudden crisis in her husband's consciousness, even when she came nearest +to apprehending its nature. As well might she doubt the return of +daylight, as dream of any permanent eclipse descending upon the faith +which had shone through every detail of Robert's ardent impulsive life, +with all its struggles, all its failings, all its beauty, since she had +known him first. The dread did not even occur to her. In her agony of +pity and reverence she thought of him as passing through a trial, which +is specially the believer's trial--the chastening by which God proves +the soul He loves. Let her only love and trust in patience. + +So that day by day as Robert's depression still continued, Catherine +surrounded him with the tenderest and wisest affection. Her quiet common +sense made itself heard, forbidding her to make too much of the change +in him, which might after all, she thought, be partly explained by the +mere physical results of his long strain of body and mind during the +Mile End epidemic. And for the rest she would not argue; she would not +inquire. She only prayed that she might so lead the Christian life +beside him, that the Lord's tenderness, the Lord's consolation, might +shine upon him through her. It had never been her wont to speak to him +much about his own influence, his own effect, in the parish. To the +austerer Christian considerations of this kind are forbidden: 'It is not +I, but Christ that worketh in me.' But now, whenever she came across any +striking trace of his power over the weak or the impure, the sick or the +sad, she would in some way make it known to him, offering it to him in +her delicate tenderness, as though it were a gift that the Father had +laid in her hand for him--a token that the Master was still indeed with +His servant, and that all was fundamentally well! + +And so much, perhaps, the contact with his wife's faith, the power of +her love, wrought in Robert, that during these weeks and months he also +never lost his own certainty of emergence from the shadow which had +overtaken him. And, indeed, driven on from day to day as he was by an +imperious intellectual thirst which would be satisfied, the religion of +the heart, the imaginative emotional habit of years, that incessant +drama which the soul enacts with the Divine Powers to which it feels +itself committed, lived and persisted through it all. Feeling was +untouched. The heart was still passionately on the side of all its old +loves and adorations, still blindly trustful that in the end, by some +compromise as yet unseen, they would be restored to it intact. + +Some time towards the end of July Robert was coming home from the Hall +before lunch, tired and worn, as the morning always left him, and +meditating some fresh sheets of the squire's proofs which had been in +his hands that morning. On the road crossing that to the rectory he +suddenly saw Reginald Newcome, thinner and whiter than ever, striding +along as fast as cassock and cloak would let him, his eyes on the +ground, and his wideawake drawn over them. He and Elsmere had scarcely +met for months, and Robert had lately made up his mind that Newcome was +distinctly less friendly, and wished to show it. + +Elsmere had touched his arm before Newcome had perceived any one near +him. Then he drew back with a start. + +'Elsmere, you here! I had an idea you were away for a holiday!' + +'Oh dear, no!' said Robert, smiling. 'I may get away in September, +perhaps--not till then.' + +'Mr. Wendover at home?' said the other, his eyes turning to the Hall, of +which the chimneys were just visible from where they stood. + +'No, he is abroad.' + +'You and he have made friends, I understand,' said the other abruptly, +his eagle look returning to Elsmere; 'I hear of you as always together.' + +'We have made friends, and we walk a great deal when the squire is +here,' said Robert, meeting Newcome's harshness of tone with a bright +dignity 'Mr. Wendover has even been doing something for us in the +village. You should come and see the new Institute. The roof is on, and +we shall open it in August or September. The best building of the kind +in the country by far, and Mr. Wendover's gift.' + +'I suppose you use the library a great deal?' said Newcome, paying no +attention to these remarks, and still eyeing his companion closely. + +'A great deal.' + +Robert had at that moment under his arm a German treatise on the history +of the Logos doctrine, which afterwards, looking back on the little +scene, he thought it probable Newcome recognised. They turned towards +the rectory together, Newcome still asking abrupt questions as to the +squire, the length of time he was to be away, Elsmere's work, parochial +and literary, during the past six months, the numbers of his Sunday +congregation, of his communicants, etc. Elsmere bore his catechism with +perfect temper, though Newcome's manner had in it a strange and almost +judicial imperativeness. + +'Elsmere,' said his questioner presently, after a pause, 'I am going to +have a retreat for priests at the Clergy House next month. Father +H----,' mentioning a famous High Churchman, 'will conduct it. You would +do me a special favour'--and suddenly the face softened, and shone with +all its old magnetism on Elsmere--'if you would come. I believe you +would find nothing to dislike in it, or in our rule, which is a most +simple one.' + +Robert smiled, and laid his hand on the other's arm. + +'No, Newcome, no; I am in no mood for H----.' + +The High Churchman looked at him with a quick and painful anxiety +visible in the stern eyes. + +'Will you tell me what that means?' + +'It means,' said Robert, clasping his hands tightly behind him, his pace +slackening a little to meet that of Newcome--'it means that if you will +give me your prayers, Newcome, your companionship sometimes, your pity +always, I will thank you from the bottom of my heart. But I am in a +state just now when I must fight my battles for myself, and in God's +sight only!' + +It was the first burst of confidence which had passed his lips to any +one but Catherine. + +Newcome stood still, a tremor of strong emotion running through the +emaciated face. + +'You are in trouble, Elsmere; I felt it, I knew it, when I first saw +you!' + +'Yes, I am in trouble,' said Robert quietly. + +'Opinions?' + +'Opinions, I suppose--or facts,' said Robert, his arms dropping wearily +beside him. 'Have you ever known what it is to be troubled in mind, I +wonder, Newcome?' + +And he looked at his companion with a sudden pitiful curiosity. + +A kind of flash passed over Mr. Newcome's face. + +'_Have I ever known?_' he repeated vaguely, and then he drew his thin +hand, the hand of the ascetic and the mystic, hastily across his eyes, +and was silent--his lips moving, his gaze on the ground, his whole +aspect that of a man wrought out of himself by a sudden passion of +memory. + +Robert watched him with surprise, and was just speaking, when Mr. +Newcome looked up, every drawn attenuated feature working painfully. + +'Did you never ask yourself, Elsmere,' he said slowly, 'what it was +drove me from the bar and journalism to the East End? Do you think I +don't know,' and his voice rose, his eyes flamed, 'what black devil it +is that is gnawing at your heart now? Why, man, I have been through +darker gulfs of hell than you have ever sounded! Many a night I have +felt myself _mad--mad of doubt_--a castaway on a shoreless sea; doubting +not only God or Christ, but myself, the soul, the very existence of +good. I found only one way out of it, and _you_ will find only one way.' + +The lithe hand caught Robert's arm impetuously--the voice with its +accent of fierce conviction was at his ear. + +'Trample on yourself! Pray down the demon, fast, scourge, kill the body, +that the soul may live! What are we, miserable worms, that we should +defy the Most High, that we should set our wretched faculties against +His Omnipotence? Submit--submit--humble yourself, my brother! Fling away +the freedom which is your ruin. There is no freedom for man. Either a +slave to Christ, or a slave to his own lusts--there is no other choice. +Go away; exchange your work here for a time for work in London. You have +too much leisure here: Satan has too much opportunity. I foresaw it--I +foresaw it when you and I first met. I felt I had a message for you, and +here I deliver it. In the Lord's name, I bid you fly; I bid you yield in +time. Better to be the Lord's captive than _the Lord's betrayer_!' + +The wasted form was drawn up to its full height, the arm was +outstretched, the long cloak fell back from it in long folds--voice and +eye were majesty itself. Robert had a tremor of responsive passion. How +easy it sounded, how tempting, to cut the knot, to mutilate and starve +the rebellious intellect which would assert itself against the soul's +purest instincts! Newcome had done it--why not he? + +And then, suddenly, as he stood gazing at his companion, the spring sun, +and murmur all about them, another face, another life, another message, +flashed on his inmost sense--the face and life of Henry Grey. Words torn +from their context but full for him of intensest meaning, passed rapidly +through his mind: '_God is not wisely trusted when declared +unintelligible._' '_Such honour rooted in dishonour stands; such faith +unfaithful makes us falsely true._' '_God is for ever reason: and His +communication, His revelation, is reason._' + +He turned away with a slight sad shake of the head. The spell was +broken. Mr. Newcome's arm dropped, and he moved sombrely on beside +Robert--the hand, which held a little book of Hours against his cloak, +trembling slightly. + +At the rectory gate he stopped. + +'Good-bye--I must go home.' + +'You won't come in?--No, no, Newcome; believe me, I am no rash careless +egotist, risking wantonly the most precious things in life! But the call +is on me, and I must follow it. All life is God's, and all thought--not +only a fraction of it. He cannot let me wander very far!' + +But the cold fingers he held so warmly dropped from his, and Newcome +turned away. + +A week afterwards, or thereabouts, Robert had in some sense followed +Newcome's counsel. Admonished perhaps by sheer physical weakness, as +much as by anything else, he had for the moment laid down his arms; he +had yielded to an invading feebleness of the will, which refused, as it +were, to carry on the struggle any longer, at such a life-destroying +pitch of intensity. The intellectual oppression of itself brought about +wild reaction and recoil, and a passionate appeal to that inward witness +of the soul which holds its own long after the reason has practically +ceased to struggle. + +It came about in this way. One morning he stood reading in the window of +the library the last of the squire's letters. It contained a short but +masterly analysis of the mental habits and idiosyncrasies of St. Paul, +_a propos_ of St. Paul's witness to the Resurrection. Every now and +then, as Elsmere turned the pages, the orthodox protest would assert +itself, the orthodox arguments make themselves felt as though in +mechanical involuntary protest. But their force and vitality was gone. +Between the Paul of Anglican theology and the fiery fallible man of +genius--so weak logically, so strong in poetry, in rhetoric, in moral +passion, whose portrait has been drawn for us by a free and temperate +criticism--the rector knew, in a sort of dull way, that his choice was +made. The one picture carried reason and imagination with it; the other +contented neither. + +But as he put down the letter something seemed to snap within him. Some +chord of physical endurance gave way. For five months he had been living +intellectually at a speed no man maintains with impunity, and this +letter of the squire's, with its imperious demands upon the tired +irritable brain, was the last straw. + +He sank down on the oriel seat, the letter dropping from his hands. +Outside, the little garden, now a mass of red and pink roses, the hill +and the distant stretches of park were wrapped in a thick sultry mist, +through which a dim far-off sunlight struggled on to the library floor, +and lay in ghostly patches on the polished boards and lower ranges of +books. + +The simplest religious thoughts began to flow over him--the simplest +childish words of prayer were on his lips. He felt himself delivered, he +knew not how or why. + +He rose deliberately, laid the squire's letter among his other papers, +and tied them up carefully; then he took up the books which lay piled on +the squire's writing-table: all those volumes of German, French, and +English criticism, liberal or apologetic, which he had been accumulating +round him day by day with a feverish toilsome impartiality, and began +rapidly and methodically to put them back in their places on the +shelves. + +'I have done too much thinking, too much reading,' he was saying to +himself as he went through his task. 'Now let it be the turn of +something else!' + +And still as he handled the books, it was as though Catherine's figure +glided backwards and forwards beside him, across the smooth floor, as +though her hand were on his arm, her eyes shining into his. Ah--he knew +well what it was had made the sharpest sting of this wrestle through +which he had been passing! It was not merely religious dread, religious +shame; that terror of disloyalty to the Divine Images which have filled +the soul's inmost shrine since its first entry into consciousness, such +as every good man feels in a like strait. This had been strong indeed; +but men are men, and love is love! Ay, it was to the dark certainty of +Catherine's misery that every advance in knowledge and intellectual +power had brought him nearer. It was from that certainty that he now, +and for the last time, recoiled. It was too much. It could not be borne. + +He walked home, counting up the engagements of the next few weeks--the +school-treat, two club field-days, a sermon in the county town, the +probable opening of the new Workmen's Institute, and so on. Oh! to be +through them all and away, away amid Alpine scents and silences. He +stood a moment beside the gray slowly-moving river, half hidden beneath +the rank flower-growth, the tansy and willow-herb, the luxuriant elder +and trailing brambles of its August banks, and thought with hungry +passion of the clean-swept Alpine pasture, the fir-woods, and the +tameless mountain streams. In three weeks or less he and Catherine +should be climbing the Jaman or the Dent du Midi. And till then he would +want all his time for men and women. Books should hold him no more. + +Catherine only put her arms round his neck in silence when he told her. +The relief was too great for words. He, too, held her close, saying +nothing. But that night, for the first time for weeks, Elsmere's wife +slept in peace and woke without dread of the day before her. + + + + +BOOK IV + +CRISIS + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +The next fortnight was a time of truce. Elsmere neither read nor +reasoned. He spent his days in the school, in the village, pottering +about the Mile End cottages, or the new Institute--sometimes fishing, +sometimes passing long summer hours on the commons with his club boys, +hunting the ponds for caddises, newts, and water-beetles, peering into +the furze-bushes for second broods, or watching the sand-martins in the +gravel-pits, and trudging home at night in the midst of an escort of +enthusiasts, all of them with pockets as full and miry as his own, to +deposit the treasures of the day in the club-room. Once more the rector, +though physically perhaps less ardent than of yore, was the life of the +party, and a certain awe and strangeness which had developed in his +boys' minds towards him, during the last few weeks, passed away. + +It was curious that in these days he would neither sit nor walk alone if +he could help it. Catherine or a stray parishioner was almost always +with him. All the while, vaguely, in the depths of consciousness, there +was the knowledge that behind this piece of quiet water on which his +life was now sailing, there lay storm and darkness, and that in front +loomed fresh possibilities of tempest. He knew, in a way, that it was a +treacherous peace which had overtaken him. And yet it was peace. The +pressure exerted by the will had temporarily given way, and the deepest +forces of the man's being had reasserted themselves. He could feel and +love and pray again; and Catherine, seeing the old glow in the eyes, the +old spring in the step, made the whole of life one thank-offering. + +On the evening following that moment of reaction in the Murewell +library, Robert had written to the squire. His letter had been +practically a withdrawal from the correspondence. + +'I find,' he wrote, 'that I have been spending too much time and energy +lately on these critical matters. It seems to me that my work as a +clergyman has suffered. Nor can I deny that your book and your letters +have been to me a source of great trouble of mind. + +'My heart is where it was, but my head is often confused. Let +controversy rest a while. My wife says I want a holiday; I think so +myself, and we are off in three weeks; not, however, I hope, before we +have welcomed you home again, and got you to open the new Institute, +which is already dazzling the eyes of the village by its size and +splendour, and the white paint that Harris the builder has been +lavishing upon it.' + +Ten days later, rather earlier than was expected, the squire and Mrs. +Darcy were at home again. Robert re-entered the great house the morning +after their arrival with a strange reluctance. Its glow and +magnificence, the warm perfumed air of the hall, brought back a sense of +old oppressions, and he walked down the passage to the library with a +sinking heart. There he found the squire busy as usual with one of those +fresh cargoes of books which always accompanied him on any homeward +journey. He was more brown, more wrinkled, more shrunken; more full of +force, of harsh epigram, of grim anecdote than ever. Robert sat on the +edge of the table laughing over his stories of French Orientalists, or +Roman cardinals, or modern Greek professors, enjoying the impartial +sarcasm which one of the greatest of _savants_ was always ready to pour +out upon his brethren of the craft. + +The squire, however, was never genial for a moment during the interview. +He did not mention his book nor Elsmere's letter. But Elsmere suspected +in him a good deal of suppressed irritability; and, as after a while he +abruptly ceased to talk, the visit grew difficult. + +The rector walked home feeling restless and depressed. The mind had +begun to work again. It was only by a great effort that he could turn +his thoughts from the squire, and all that the squire had meant to him +during the past year, and so woo back to himself 'the shy bird Peace.' + +Mr. Wendover watched the door close behind him, and then went back to +his work with a gesture of impatience. + +'Once a priest, always a priest. What a fool I was to forget it! You +think you make an impression on the mystic, and at the bottom there is +always something which defies you and common sense. "Two and two do not, +and shall not, make four,"' he said to himself, in a mincing voice of +angry sarcasm. '"It would give me too much pain that they should." Well, +and so I suppose what might have been a rational friendship will go by +the board like everything else. What can make the man shilly-shally in +this way? He is convinced already, as he knows--those later letters were +conclusive! His living, perhaps, and his work! Not for the money's +sake--there never was a more incredibly disinterested person born. But +his work? Well, who is to hinder his work? Will he be the first parson +in the Church of England who looks after the poor and holds his tongue? +If you can't speak your mind, it is something at any rate to possess +one--nine-tenths of the clergy being without the appendage. But +Elsmere--pshaw! he will go muddling on to the end of the chapter!' + +The squire, indeed, was like a hunter whose prey escapes him at the very +moment of capture, and there grew on him a mocking aggressive mood which +Elsmere often found hard to bear. + +One natural symptom of it was his renewed churlishness as to all local +matters. Elsmere one afternoon spent an hour in trying to persuade him +to open the new Institute. + +'What on earth do you want me for?' inquired Mr. Wendover, standing +before the fire in the library, the Medusa head peering over his +shoulder. 'You know perfectly well that all the gentry about here--I +suppose you will have some of them--regard me as an old reprobate, and +the poor people, I imagine, as a kind of ogre. To me it doesn't matter a +twopenny damn--I apologise; it was the Duke of Wellington's favourite +standard of value--but I can't see what good it can do either you or the +village, under the circumstances, that I should stand on my head for the +popular edification.' + +Elsmere, however, merely stood his ground, arguing and bantering, till +the squire grudgingly gave way. This time, after he departed, Mr. +Wendover, instead of going to his work, still stood gloomily ruminating +in front of the fire. His frowning eyes wandered round the great room +before him. For the first time he was conscious that now, as soon as the +charm of Elsmere's presence was withdrawn, his working hours were doubly +solitary; that his loneliness weighed upon him more; and that it +mattered to him appreciably whether that young man went or stayed. The +stirring of a new sensation, however,--unparalleled since the brief days +when even Roger Wendover had his friends and his attractions like other +men,--was soon lost in renewed chafing at Elsmere's absurdities. The +squire had been at first perfectly content--so he told himself--to limit +the field of their intercourse, and would have been content to go on +doing so. But Elsmere himself had invited freedom of speech between +them. + +'I would have given him my best,' Mr. Wendover reflected impatiently. 'I +could have handed on to him all I shall never use, and he might use, +admirably. And now we might as well be on the terms we were to begin +with for all the good I get out of him, or he out of me. Clearly nothing +but cowardice! He cannot face the intellectual change, and he must, I +suppose, dread lest it should affect his work. Good God, what nonsense! +As if any one inquired what an English parson believed nowadays, so long +as he performs all the usual antics decently!' + +And, meanwhile, it never occurred to the squire that Elsmere had a wife, +and a pious one. Catherine had been dropped out of his calculation as to +Elsmere's future, at a very early stage. + + * * * * * + +The following afternoon Robert, coming home from a round, found +Catherine out, and a note awaiting him from the Hall. + +'Can you and Mrs. Elsmere come in to tea?' wrote the squire. 'Madame de +Netteville is here, and one or two others.' + +Robert grumbled a good deal, looked for Catherine to devise an excuse +for him, could not find her, and at last reluctantly set out again +alone. + +He was tired and his mood was heavy. As he trudged through the park he +never once noticed the soft sun-flooded distance, the shining loops of +the river, the feeding deer, or any of those natural witcheries to which +eye and sense were generally so responsive. The labourers going home, +the children--with aprons full of crab-apples, and lips dyed by the +first blackberries--who passed him, got but an absent smile or salute +from the rector. The interval of exaltation and recoil was over. The +ship of the mind was once more labouring in alien and dreary seas. + +He roused himself to remember that he had been curious to see Madame de +Netteville. She was an old friend of the squire's, the holder of a +London salon, much more exquisite and select than anything Lady +Charlotte could show. + +'She had the same thing in Paris before the war,' the squire explained. +'Renan gave me a card to her. An extraordinary woman. No particular +originality; but one of the best persons "to consult about ideas," like +Joubert's Madame de Beaumont, I ever saw. Receptiveness itself. A +beauty, too, or was one, and a bit of a sphinx, which adds to the +attraction. Mystery becomes a woman vastly. One suspects her of +adventures just enough to find her society doubly piquant.' + +Vincent directed him to the upper terrace, whither tea had been taken. +This terrace, which was one of the features of Murewell, occupied the +top of the yew-clothed hill on which the library looked out. Evelyn +himself had planned it. Along its upper side ran one of the most +beautiful of old walls, broken by niches and statues, tapestried with +roses and honeysuckle, and opening in the centre to reveal Evelyn's +darling conceit of all--a semicircular space, holding a fountain, and +leading to a grotto. The grotto had been scooped out of the hill; it was +peopled with dim figures of fauns and nymphs who showed white amid its +moist greenery; and in front a marble Silence drooped over the fountain, +which held gold and silver fish in a singularly clear water. Outside ran +the long stretch of level turf, edged with a jewelled rim of flowers; +and as the hill fell steeply underneath, the terrace was like a high +green platform raised into air, in order that a Wendover might see his +domain, which from thence lay for miles spread out before him. + +Here, beside the fountain, were gathered the squire, Mrs. Darcy, Madame +de Netteville, and two unknown men. One of them was introduced to +Elsmere as Mr. Spooner, and recognised by him as a Fellow of the Royal +Society, a famous mathematician, sceptic, _bon vivant_, and sayer of +good things. The other was a young Liberal Catholic, the author of a +remarkable collection of essays on mediaeval subjects in which the +squire, treating the man's opinions of course as of no account, had +instantly recognised the note of the true scholar. A pale, small, hectic +creature, possessed of that restless energy of mind which often goes +with the heightened temperature of consumption. + +Robert took a seat by Madame de Netteville, whose appearance was +picturesqueness itself. Her dress, a skilful mixture of black and creamy +yellow, lay about her in folds, as soft, as carelessly effective as her +manner. Her plumed hat shadowed a face which was no longer young in such +a way as to hide all the lines possible; while the half-light brought +admirably out the rich dark smoothness of the tints, the black lustre of +the eyes. A delicate blue-veined hand lay upon her knee, and Robert was +conscious after ten minutes or so that all her movements, which seemed +at first merely slow and languid, were in reality singularly full of +decision and purpose. + +She was not easy to talk to on a first acquaintance. Robert felt that +she was studying him, and was not so much at his ease as usual, partly +owing to fatigue and mental worry. + +She asked him little abrupt questions about the neighbourhood, his +parish, his work, in a soft tone which had, however, a distinct +aloofness, even _hauteur_. His answers, on the other hand, were often a +trifle reckless and offhand. He was in a mood to be impatient with a +_mondaine's_ languid inquiries into clerical work, and it seemed to him +the squire's description had been overdone. + +'So you try to civilise your peasants,' she said at last. 'Does it +succeed--is it worth while?' + +'That depends upon your general ideas of what is worth while,' he +answered smiling. + +'Oh, everything is worth while that passes the time,' she said +hurriedly. 'The clergy of the old _regime_ went through life half +asleep. That was their way of passing it. Your way, being a modern, is +to bustle and try experiments.' + +Her eyes, half closed but none the less provocative, ran over Elsmere's +keen face and pliant frame. An atmosphere of intellectual and social +assumption enwrapped her, which annoyed Robert in much the same way as +Langham's philosophical airs were wont to do. He was drawn without +knowing it into a match of wits wherein his strokes, if they lacked the +finish and subtlety of hers, showed certainly no lack of sharpness or +mental resource. Madame de Netteville's tone insensibly changed, her +manner quickened, her great eyes gradually unclosed. + +Suddenly, as they were in the middle of a skirmish as to the reality of +influence, Madame de Netteville paradoxically maintaining that no human +being had ever really converted, transformed, or convinced another, the +voice of young Wishart, shrill and tremulous, rose above the general +level of talk. + +'I am quite ready; I am not the least afraid of a definition. Theology +is organised knowledge in the field of religion, a science like any +other science!' + +'Certainly, my dear sir, certainly,' said Mr. Spooner, leaning forward +with his hands round his knees, and speaking with the most elegant and +good-humoured _sangfroid_ imaginable, 'the science of the world's +ghosts! I cannot imagine any more fascinating.' + +'Well,' said Madame de Netteville to Robert, with a deep breath, '_that_ +was a remark to have hurled at you all at once out of doors on a +summer's afternoon! Oh, Mr. Spooner!' she said, raising her voice, +'don't play the heretic here! There is no fun in it; there are too many +with you.' + +'I did not begin it, my dear madam, and your reproach is unjust. On one +side of me Archbishop Manning's _fidus Achates_,' and the speaker took +off his large straw hat and gracefully waved it--first to the right, +then to the left. 'On the other, the rector of the parish. "Cannon to +right of me, cannon to left of me." I submit my courage is +unimpeachable!' + +He spoke with a smiling courtesy as excessive as his silky moustache, +his long straw-coloured beard, and his Panama hat. Madame de Netteville +surveyed him with cool critical eyes. Robert smiled slightly, +acknowledged the bow, but did not speak. + +Mr. Wishart evidently took no heed of anything but his own thoughts. He +sat bolt upright with shining excited eyes. + +'Ah, I remember that article of yours in the _Fortnightly_! How you +sceptics miss the point!' + +And out came a stream of argument and denunciation which had probably +lain lava-hot at the heart of the young convert for years, waiting for +such a moment as this, when he had before him at close quarters two of +the most famous antagonists of his faith. The outburst was striking, but +certainly unpardonably ill-timed. Madame de Netteville retreated into +herself with a shrug. Robert, in whom a sore nerve had been set jarring, +did his utmost to begin his talk with her again. + +In vain!--for the squire struck in. He had been sitting huddled +together--his cynical eyes wandering from Wishart to Elsmere--when +suddenly some extravagant remark of the young Catholic, and Robert's +effort to edge away from the conversation, caught his attention at the +same moment. His face hardened, and in his nasal voice he dealt a swift +epigram at Mr. Wishart, which for the moment left the young disputant +floundering. + +But only for the moment. In another minute or two the argument, begun so +casually, had developed into a serious trial of strength, in which the +squire and young Wishart took the chief parts, while Mr. Spooner threw +in a laugh and a sarcasm here and there. + +And as long as Mr. Wendover talked, Madame de Netteville listened. +Robert's restless repulsion to the whole incident, his passionate wish +to escape from these phrases and illustrations and turns of argument +which were all so wearisomely stale and familiar to him, found no +support in her. Mrs. Darcy dared not second his attempts at chat, for +Mr. Wendover, on the rare occasions when he held forth, was accustomed +to be listened to; and Elsmere was of too sensitive a social fibre to +break up the party by an abrupt exit, which could only have been +interpreted in one way. + +So he stayed, and perforce listened, but in complete silence. None of +Mr. Wendover's side-hits touched him. Only as the talk went on, the +rector in the background got paler and paler; his eyes, as they passed +from the mobile face of the Catholic convert, already, for those who +knew, marked with the signs of death, to the bronzed visage of the +squire, grew duller--more instinct with a slowly-dawning despair. + + * * * * * + +Half an hour later he was once more on the road leading to the park +gate. He had a vague memory that at parting the squire had shown him the +cordiality of one suddenly anxious to apologise by manner, if not by +word. Otherwise everything was forgotten. He was only anxious, half +dazed as he was, to make out wherein lay the vital difference between +his present self and the Elsmere who had passed along that road an hour +before. + +He had heard a conversation on religious topics, wherein nothing was new +to him, nothing affected him intellectually at all. What was there in +that to break the spring of life like this? He stood still, heavily +trying to understand himself. + +Then gradually it became clear to him. A month ago, every word of that +hectic young pleader for Christ and the Christian certainties would have +roused in him a leaping passionate sympathy--the heart's yearning +assent, even when the intellect was most perplexed. Now that inmost +strand had given way. Suddenly the disintegrating force he had been so +pitifully, so blindly, holding at bay had penetrated once for all into +the sanctuary! What had happened to him had been the first real failure +of _feeling_, the first treachery of the _heart_. Wishart's hopes and +hatreds, and sublime defiances of man's petty faculties, had aroused in +him no echo, no response. His soul had been dead within him. + +As he gained the shelter of the wooded lane beyond the gate it seemed to +Robert that he was going through, once more, that old fierce temptation +of Bunyan's,-- + +'For after the Lord had in this manner thus graciously delivered me, and +had set me down so sweetly in the faith of His Holy Gospel, and had +given me such strong consolation and blessed evidence from heaven, +touching my interest in His love through Christ, the tempter came upon +me again, and that with a more grievous and dreadful temptation than +before. And that was, "To sell and part with this most blessed Christ; +to exchange Him for the things of life, for anything!" The temptation +lay upon me for the space of a year, and did follow me so continually +that I was not rid of it one day in a month: no, not sometimes one hour +in many days together, for it did always, in almost whatever I thought, +intermix itself therewith, in such sort that I could neither eat my +food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine eyes to look on this +or that, but still the temptation would come: "Sell Christ for this, or +sell Christ for that, sell Him, sell Him!"' + +Was this what lay before the minister of God now in this _selva oscura_ +of life? The selling of the Master, of 'the love so sweet, the unction +spiritual,' for an intellectual satisfaction, the ravaging of all the +fair places of the heart by an intellectual need! + +And still through all the despair, all the revolt, all the pain, which +made the summer air a darkness, and closed every sense in him to the +evening beauty, he felt the irresistible march and pressure of the new +instincts, the new forces, which life and thought had been calling into +being. The words of St. Augustine which he had read to Catherine, taken +in a strange new sense, came back to him--'Commend to the keeping of the +Truth whatever the Truth hath given thee, and thou shalt lose nothing!' + +Was it the summons of Truth which was rending the whole nature in this +way? + +Robert stood still, and with his hands locked behind him, and his face +turned like the face of a blind man towards a world of which it saw +nothing, went through a desperate catechism of himself. + +'_Do I believe in God?_ Surely, surely! "Though He slay me yet will I +trust in Him!" _Do I believe in Christ?_ Yes,--in the teacher, the +martyr, the symbol to us Westerns of all things heavenly and abiding, +the image and pledge of the invisible life of the spirit--with all my +soul and all my mind! + +'_But in the Man-God_, the Word from Eternity,--in a wonder-working +Christ, in a risen and ascended Jesus, in the living Intercessor and +Mediator for the lives of His doomed brethren?' + +He waited, conscious that it was the crisis of his history, and there +rose in him, as though articulated one by one by an audible voice, words +of irrevocable meaning. + +'Every human soul in which the voice of God makes itself felt, enjoys, +equally with Jesus of Nazareth, the divine sonship, and "_miracles do +not happen!_"' + +It was done. He felt for the moment as Bunyan did after his lesser +defeat. + +'Now was the battle won, and down fell I as a bird that is shot from the +top of a tree into great guilt and fearful despair. Thus getting out of +my bed I went moping in the field; but God knows with as heavy an heart +as mortal man I think could bear, where for the space of two hours I was +like a man bereft of life.' + +All these years of happy spiritual certainty, of rejoicing oneness with +Christ, to end in this wreck and loss! Was not this indeed '_il gran +rifiuto_'--the greatest of which human daring is capable? The lane +darkened round him. Not a soul was in sight. The only sounds were the +sounds of a gently-breathing nature, sounds of birds and swaying +branches and intermittent gusts of air rustling through the gorse and +the drifts of last year's leaves in the wood beside him. He moved +mechanically onward, and presently, after the first flutter of desolate +terror had passed away, with a new inrushing sense which seemed to him a +sense of liberty--of infinite expansion. + +Suddenly the trees before him thinned, the ground sloped away, and there +to the left on the westernmost edge of the hill lay the square stone +rectory, its windows open to the evening coolness, a white flutter of +pigeons round the dovecote on the side lawn, the gold of the August +wheat in the great cornfield showing against the heavy girdle of +oak-wood. + +Robert stood gazing at it--the home consecrated by love, by effort, by +faith. The high alternations of intellectual and spiritual debate, the +strange emerging sense of deliverance, gave way to a most bitter human +pang of misery. + +'_O God! My wife--my work!_' + +... There was a sound of a voice calling--Catherine's voice calling for +him. He leant against the gate of the wood-path, struggling sternly with +himself. This was no simple matter of his own intellectual consistency +or happiness. Another's whole life was concerned. Any precipitate +speech, or hasty action, would be a crime. A man is bound above all +things to protect those who depend on him from his own immature or +revocable impulses. Not a word yet, till this sense of convulsion and +upheaval had passed away, and the mind was once more its own master. + +He opened the gate and went towards her. She was strolling along the +path looking out for him, one delicate hand gathering up her long +evening dress--that very same black brocade she had worn in the old days +at Burwood--the other playing with their Dandie Dinmont puppy who was +leaping beside her. As she caught sight of him, there was the flashing +smile, the hurrying step. And he felt he could but just drag himself to +meet her. + +'Robert, how long you have been! I thought you must have stayed to +dinner after all! And how tired you seem!' + +'I had a long walk,' he said, catching her hand, as it slipped itself +under his arm, and clinging to it as though to a support. 'And I am +tired. There is no use whatever in denying it.' + +His voice was light, but if it had not been so dark she must have been +startled by his face. As they went on towards the house, however, she +scolding him for over-walking, he won his battle with himself. He went +through the evening so that even Catherine's jealous eyes saw nothing +but extra fatigue. In the most desperate straits of life love is still +the fountain of all endurance, and if ever a man loved it was Robert +Elsmere. + +But that night, as he lay sleepless in their quiet room, with the window +open to the stars and to the rising gusts of wind, which blew the petals +of the cluster-rose outside in drifts of 'fair weather snow' on to the +window-sill, he went through an agony which no words can adequately +describe. + +He must, of course, give up his living and his orders. His standards and +judgments had always been simple and plain in these respects. In other +men it might be right and possible that they should live on in the +ministry of the Church, doing the humane and charitable work of the +Church, while refusing assent to the intellectual and dogmatic framework +on which the Church system rests; but for himself it would be neither +right nor wrong, but simply impossible. He did not argue or reason about +it. There was a favourite axiom of Mr. Grey's which had become part of +his pupil's spiritual endowment, and which was perpetually present to +him at this crisis of his life, in the spirit, if not in the +letter--'_Conviction is the Conscience of the Mind._' And with this +intellectual conscience he was no more capable of trifling than with the +moral conscience. + +The night passed away. How the rare intermittent sounds impressed +themselves upon him!--the stir of the child's waking soon after midnight +in the room overhead; the cry of the owls on the oak-wood; the purring +of the night-jars on the common; the morning chatter of the swallows +round the eaves. + +With the first invasion of the dawn Robert raised himself and looked at +Catherine. She was sleeping with that light sound sleep which belongs to +health of body and mind, one hand under her face, the other stretched +out in soft relaxation beside her. Her husband hung over her in a +bewilderment of feeling. Before him passed all sorts of incoherent +pictures of the future; the mind was caught by all manner of incongruous +details in that saddest uprooting which lay before him. How her sleep, +her ignorance, reproached him! He thought of the wreck of all her pure +ambitions--for him, for their common work, for the people she had come +to love; the ruin of her life of charity and tender usefulness, the +darkening of all her hopes, the shaking of all her trust. Two years of +devotion, of exquisite self-surrender, had brought her to this! It was +for this he had lured her from the shelter of her hills, for this she +had opened to him all her sweet stores of faith, all the deepest springs +of her womanhood. Oh, how she must suffer! The thought of it and his own +helplessness wrung his heart. + +Oh, could he keep her love through it all? There was an unspeakable +dread mingled with his grief--his remorse. It had been there for months. +In her eyes would not only pain but sin divide them? Could he possibly +prevent her whole relation to him from altering and dwindling? + +It was to be the problem of his remaining life. With a great cry of the +soul to that God it yearned and felt for through all the darkness and +ruin which encompassed it, he laid his hand on hers with the timidest +passing touch. + +'Catherine, I will make amends! My wife, I will make amends!' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +The next morning Catherine, finding that Robert still slept on after +their usual waking time, and remembering his exhaustion of the night +before, left him softly, and kept the house quiet that he might not be +disturbed. She was in charge of the now toddling Mary in the dining-room +when the door opened and Robert appeared. + +At sight of him she sprang up with a half-cry; the face seemed to have +lost all its fresh colour, its look of sun and air; the eyes were sunk; +the lips and chin lined and drawn. It was like a face from which the +youth had suddenly been struck out. + +'Robert!---' but her question died on her lips. + +'A bad night, darling, and a bad headache,' he said, groping his way, as +it seemed to her, to the table, his hand leaning on her arm. 'Give me +some breakfast.' + +She restrained herself at once, put him into an armchair by the window, +and cared for him in her tender noiseless way. But she had grown almost +as pale as he, and her heart was like lead. + +'Will you send me off for the day to Thurston ponds?' he said presently, +trying to smile with lips so stiff and nerveless that the will had small +control over them. + +'Can you walk so far? You did overdo it yesterday, you know. You have +never got over Mile End, Robert.' + +But her voice had a note in it which in his weakness he could hardly +bear. He thirsted to be alone again, to be able to think over quietly +what was best for her--for them both. There must be a next step, and in +her neighbourhood he was too feeble, too tortured, to decide upon it. + +'No more, dear--no more,' he said impatiently, as she tried to feed him; +then he added as he rose: 'Don't make arrangements for our going next +week, Catherine; it can't be so soon.' + +Catherine looked at him with eyes of utter dismay. The sustaining hope +of all these difficult weeks, which had slipped with such terrible +unexpectedness into their happy life, was swept away from her. + +'Robert, you _ought_ to go.' + +'I have too many things to arrange,' he said sharply, almost irritably. +Then his tone changed: 'Don't urge it, Catherine.' + +His eyes in their weariness seemed to entreat her not to argue. She +stooped and kissed him, her lips trembling. + +'When do you want to go to Thurston?' + +'As soon as possible. Can you find me my fishing-basket and get me some +sandwiches? I shall only lounge there and take it easy.' + +She did everything for him that wifely hands could do. Then when his +fishing-basket was strapped on, and his lunch was slipped into the +capacious pocket of the well-worn shooting coat, she threw her arms +round him. + +'Robert, you will come away _soon_.' + +He roused himself and kissed her. + +'I will,' he said simply, withdrawing, however, from her grasp as though +he could not bear those close pleading eyes. 'Good-bye! I shall be back +some time in the afternoon.' + +From her post beside the study window she watched him take the short cut +across the cornfield. She was miserable, and all at sea. A week ago he +had been so like himself again, and now----! Never had she seen him in +anything like this state of physical and mental collapse. + +'Oh, Robert,' she cried under her breath, with an abandonment like a +child's, strong soul that she was, 'why _won't_ you tell me, dear? Why +won't you let me share? I might help you through--I might.' + +She supposed he must be again in trouble of mind. A weaker woman would +have implored, tormented, till she knew all. Catherine's very strength +and delicacy of nature, and that respect which was inbred in her for the +_sacra_ of the inner life, stood in her way. She could not catechise +him, and force his confidence on this subject of all others. It must be +given freely. And oh! it was so long in coming! + +Surely, surely, it must be mainly physical, the result of +over-strain--expressing itself in characteristic mental worry, just as +daily life reproduces itself in dreams. The worldly man suffers at such +times through worldly things, the religious man through his religion. +Comforting herself a little with thoughts of this kind, and with certain +more or less vague preparations for departure, Catherine got through the +morning as best she might. + +Meanwhile, Robert was trudging along to Thurston under a sky which, +after a few threatening showers, promised once more to be a sky of +intense heat. He had with him all the tackle necessary for spooning +pike, a sport the novelty and success of which had hugely commended it +the year before to those Esau-like instincts Murewell had so much +developed in him. + +And now--oh the weariness of the August warmth, and the long stretches +of sandy road! By the time he reached the ponds he was tired out; but +instead of stopping at the largest of the three, where a picturesque +group of old brick cottages brought a reminder of man and his works into +the prairie solitude of the common, he pushed on to a smaller pool just +beyond, now hidden in a green cloud of birch-wood. Here, after pushing +his way through the closely-set trees, he made some futile attempts at +fishing, only to put up his rod long before the morning was over and lay +it beside him on the bank. And there he sat for hours, vaguely watching +the reflection of the clouds, the gambols and quarrels of the waterfowl, +the ways of the birds, the alternations of sun and shadow on the +softly-moving trees,--the real self of him passing all the while through +an interminable inward drama, starting from the past, stretching to the +future, steeped in passion, in pity, in regret. + +He thought of the feelings with which he had taken orders, of Oxford +scenes and Oxford persons, of the efforts, the pains, the successes of +his first year at Murewell. What a ghastly mistake it had all been! He +felt a kind of sore contempt for himself, for his own lack of +prescience, of self-knowledge. His life looked to him so shallow and +worthless. How does a man ever retrieve such a false step? He groaned +aloud as he thought of Catherine linked to one born to defeat her hopes, +and all that natural pride that a woman feels in the strength and +consistency of the man she loves. As he sat there by the water he +touched the depths of self-humiliation. + +As to religious belief, everything was a chaos. What might be to him the +ultimate forms and condition of thought, the tired mind was quite +incapable of divining. To every stage in the process of destruction it +was feverishly alive. But its formative energy was for the moment gone. +The foundations were swept away, and everything must be built up afresh. +Only the _habit_ of faith held, the close instinctive clinging to a +Power beyond sense--a Goodness, a Will, not man's. The soul had been +stripped of its old defences, but at his worst there was never a moment +when Elsmere felt himself _utterly_ forsaken. + +But his people--his work! Every now and then into the fragmentary debate +still going on within him there would flash little pictures of Murewell. +The green, with the sun on the house-fronts, the awning over the village +shop, the vane on the old 'Manor-house,' the familiar figures at the +doors; his church, with every figure in the Sunday congregation as clear +to him as though he were that moment in the pulpit; the children he had +taught, the sick he had nursed, this or that weather-beaten or +brutalised peasant whose history he knew, whose tragic secrets he had +learnt,--all these memories and images clung about him as though with +ghostly hands, asking, 'Why will you desert us? You are ours--stay with +us!' + +Then his thoughts would run over the future, dwelling, with a tense +realistic sharpness, on every detail which lay before him--the +arrangements with his _locum tenens_, the interview with the bishop, the +parting with the rectory. It even occurred to him to wonder what must be +done with Martha and his mother's cottage. + +His mother? As he thought of her a wave of unutterable longing rose and +broke. The difficult tears stood in his eyes. He had a strange +conviction that at this crisis of his life she of _all_ human beings +would have understood him best. + +When would the squire know? He pictured the interview with him, +divining, with the same abnormal clearness of inward vision, Mr. +Wendover's start of mingled triumph and impatience--triumph in the new +recruit, impatience with the Quixotic folly which could lead a man to +look upon orthodox dogma as a thing real enough to be publicly +renounced, or clerical pledges as more than a form of words. So +henceforth he was on the same side with the squire, held by an +indiscriminating world as bound to the same negations, the same +hostilities! The thought roused in him a sudden fierceness of moral +repugnance. The squire and Edward Langham--they were the only sceptics +of whom he had ever had close and personal experience. And with all his +old affection for Langham, all his frank sense of pliancy in the +squire's hands, yet in this strait of life how he shrinks from them +both!--souls at war with life and man, without holiness, without +perfume! + +Is it the law of things? 'Once loosen a man's _religio_, once fling away +the old binding elements, the old traditional restraints which have made +him what he is, and moral deterioration is certain.' How often he has +heard it said! How often he has endorsed it! Is it true? His heart grows +cold within him. What good man can ever contemplate with patience the +loss, not of friends or happiness, but of his best self? What shall it +profit a man, indeed, if he gain the whole world--the whole world of +knowledge and speculation--and _lose his own soul_? + +And then, for his endless comfort, there rose on the inward eye the +vision of an Oxford lecture room, of a short sturdy figure, of a great +brow over honest eyes, of words alive with moral passion, of thought +instinct with the beauty of holiness. Thank God for the saint in Henry +Grey! Thinking of it, Robert felt his own self-respect re-born. + +Oh! to see Grey in the flesh, to get his advice, his approval! Even +though it was the depth of vacation, Grey was so closely connected with +the town, as distinguished from the university, life of Oxford, it might +be quite possible to find him at home. Elsmere suddenly determined to +find out at once if he could be seen. + +And if so, he would go over to Oxford at once. _This_ should be the next +step, and he would say nothing to Catherine till afterwards. He felt +himself so dull, so weary, so resourceless. Grey should help and counsel +him, should send him back with a clearer brain--a quicker ingenuity of +love, better furnished against her pain and his own. + +Then everything else was forgotten; and he thought of nothing but that +grisly moment of waking in the empty room, when still believing it +night, he had put out his hand for his wife, and with a superstitious +pang had felt himself alone. His heart torn with a hundred inarticulate +cries of memory and grief, he sat on beside the water, unconscious of +the passing of time, his gray eyes staring sightlessly at the +wood-pigeons as they flew past him, at the occasional flash of a +kingfisher, at the moving panorama of summer clouds above the trees +opposite. + +At last he was startled back to consciousness by the fall of a few heavy +drops of warm rain. He looked at his watch. It was nearly four o'clock. +He rose, stiff and cramped with sitting, and at the same instant he saw +beyond the birchwood on the open stretch of common a boy's figure, +which, after a step or two, he recognised as Ned Irwin. + +'You here, Ned?' he said, stopping, the pastoral temper in him +reasserting itself at once. 'Why aren't you harvesting?' + +'Please, sir, I finished with the Hall medders yesterday, and Mr. +Carter's job don't begin till to-morrow. He's got a machine coming from +Witley, he hev, and they won't let him have it till Thursday, so I've +been out after things for the club.' + +And opening the tin box strapped on his back, he showed the day's +capture of butterflies, and some belated birds' eggs, the plunder of a +bit of common where the turf for the winter's burning was just being +cut. + +'Goatsucker, linnet, stonechat,' said the rector, fingering them. 'Well +done for August, Ned. If you haven't got anything better to do with +them, give them to that small boy of Mr. Carter's that's been ill so +long. He'd thank you for them, I know.' + +The lad nodded with a guttural sound of assent. Then his new-born +scientific ardour seemed to struggle with his rustic costiveness of +speech. + +'I've been just watching a queer creetur,' he said at last hurriedly; 'I +b'leeve he's that un.' + +And he pulled out a well-thumbed handbook, and pointed to a cut of the +grasshopper warbler. + +'Whereabouts?' asked Robert, wondering the while at his own start of +interest. + +'In that bit of common t'other side the big pond,' said Ned, pointing, +his brick-red countenance kindling into suppressed excitement. + +'Come and show me!' said the rector, and the two went off together. And +sure enough, after a little beating about, they heard the note which had +roused the lad's curiosity, the loud whirr of a creature that should +have been a grasshopper, and was not. + +They stalked the bird a few yards, stooping and crouching, Robert's +eager hand on the boy's arm, whenever the clumsy rustic movements made +too much noise among the underwood. They watched it uttering its jarring +imitative note on bush after bush, just dropping to the ground as they +came near, and flitting a yard or two farther, but otherwise showing no +sign of alarm at their presence. Then suddenly the impulse which had +been leading him on died in the rector. He stood upright, with a long +sigh. + +'I must go home, Ned,' he said abruptly. 'Where are you off to?' + +'Please, sir, there's my sister at the cottage, her as married Jim, the +under-keeper. I be going there for my tea.' + +'Come along, then, we can go together.' + +They trudged along in silence; presently Robert turned on his companion. + +'Ned, this natural history has been a fine thing for you, my lad; mind +you stick to it. That and good work will make a man of you. When I go +away----' + +The boy started and stopped dead, his dumb animal eyes fixed on his +companion. + +'You know I shall soon be going off on my holiday,' said Robert, smiling +faintly; adding hurriedly as the boy's face resumed its ordinary +expression: 'But some day, Ned, I shall go for good. I don't know +whether you've been depending on me--you and some of the others. I think +perhaps you have. If so, don't depend on me, Ned, any more! It must all +come to an end--everything must--_everything!_--except the struggle to +be a man in the world, and not a beast--to make one's heart clean and +soft, and not hard and vile. That is the _one_ thing that matters, and +lasts. Ah, never forget that, Ned! Never forget it!' + +He stood still, towering over the slouching thick-set form beside him, +his pale intensity of look giving a rare dignity and beauty to the face +which owed so little of its attractiveness to comeliness of feature. He +had the makings of a true shepherd of men, and his mind as he spoke was +crossed by a hundred different currents of feeling--bitterness, pain, +and yearning unspeakable. No man could feel the wrench that lay before +him more than he. + +Ned Irwin said not a word. His heavy lids were dropped over his deep-set +eye; he stood motionless, nervously fiddling with his butterfly +net--awkwardness, and, as it seemed, irresponsiveness, in his whole +attitude. + +Robert gathered himself together. + +'Well, good-night, my lad,' he said with a change of tone. 'Good luck to +you; be off to your tea!' + +And he turned away, striding swiftly over the short burnt August grass +in the direction of the Murewell woods, which rose in a blue haze of +heat against the slumberous afternoon sky. He had not gone a hundred +yards before he heard a clattering after him. He stopped, and Ned came +up with him. + +'They're heavy, them things,' said the boy, desperately blurting it out, +and pointing, with heaving chest and panting breath, to the rod and +basket. 'I am going that way, I can leave un at the rectory.' + +Robert's eyes gleamed. + +'They are no weight, Ned--'cause why? I've been lazy and caught no fish! +But there,'--after a moment's hesitation he slipped off the basket and +rod, and put them into the begrimed hands held out for them. 'Bring them +when you like; I don't know when I shall want them again. Thank you, and +God bless you!' + +The boy was off with his booty in a second. + +'Perhaps he'll like to think he did it for me, by and by,' said Robert +sadly to himself, moving on, a little moisture in the clear gray eye. + + * * * * * + +About three o'clock next day Robert was in Oxford. The night before he +had telegraphed to ask if Grey was at home. The reply had been--'Here +for a week on way north; come by all means.' Oh! that look of +Catherine's when he had told her of his plan, trying in vain to make it +look merely casual and ordinary. + +'It is more than a year since I have set eyes on Grey, Catherine. And +the day's change would be a boon. I could stay the night at Merton, and +get home early next day.' + +But as he turned a pleading look to her, he had been startled by the +sudden rigidity of face and form. Her silence had in it an intense, +almost a haughty, reproach, which she was too keenly hurt to put into +words. + +He caught her by the arm, and drew her forcibly to him. There he made +her look into the eyes which were full of nothing but the most +passionate imploring affection. + +'Have patience a little more, Catherine!' he just murmured. 'Oh, how I +have blessed you for silence! Only till I come back!' + +'Till you come back,' she repeated slowly. 'I cannot bear it any longer, +Robert, that you should give others your confidence, and not me.' + +He groaned and let her go. No--there should be but one day more of +silence, and that day was interposed for her sake. If Grey from his +calmer standpoint bade him wait and test himself, before taking any +irrevocable step, he would obey him. And if so, the worst pang of all +need not yet be inflicted on Catherine, though as to his state of mind +he would be perfectly open with her. + +A few hours later his cab deposited him at the well-known door. It +seemed to him that he and the scorched plane-trees lining the sides of +the road were the only living things in the wide sun-beaten street. + +Every house was shut up. Only the Greys' open windows, amid their +shuttered neighbours, had a friendly human air. + +Yes; Mr. Grey was in, and expecting Mr. Elsmere. Robert climbed the dim +familiar staircase, his heart beating fast. + +'Elsmere, this is a piece of good fortune!' + +And the two men, after a grasp of the hand, stood fronting each other: +Mr. Grey, a light of pleasure on the rugged dark-complexioned face, +looking up at his taller and paler visitor. + +But Robert could find nothing to say in return; and in an instant Mr. +Grey's quick eye detected the strained nervous emotion of the man before +him. + +'Come and sit down, Elsmere--there, in the window, where we can talk. +One has to live on this east side of the house this weather.' + +'In the first place,' said Mr. Grey, scrutinising him, as he returned to +his own book-littered corner of the window-seat. 'In the first place, my +dear fellow, I can't congratulate you on your appearance. I never saw a +man look in worse condition--to be up and about.' + +'That's nothing!' said Robert almost impatiently. 'I want a holiday, I +believe. Grey!' and he looked nervously out over garden and apple-trees, +'I have come--very selfishly--to ask your advice; to throw a trouble +upon you, to claim all your friendship can give me.' + +He stopped. Mr. Grey was silent--his expression changing instantly, the +bright eyes profoundly, anxiously attentive. + +'I have just come to the conclusion,' said Robert, after a moment, with +quick abruptness, 'that I ought now--at this moment--to leave the +Church, and give up my living, for reasons which I will describe to you. +But before I act on the conclusion, I wanted the light of your mind upon +it, seeing that--that--other persons than myself are concerned.' + +'Give up your living!' echoed Mr. Grey in a low voice of astonishment. +He sat looking at the face and figure of the man before him with a +half-frowning expression. How often Robert had seen some rash exuberant +youth quelled by that momentary frown! Essentially conservative as was +the inmost nature of the man, for all his radicalism there were few +things for which Henry Grey felt more instinctive distaste than for +unsteadiness of will and purpose, however glorified by fine names. +Robert knew it, and, strangely enough, felt for a moment in the presence +of the heretical tutor as a culprit before a judge. + +'It is, of course, a matter of opinions,' he said, with an effort. 'Do +you remember, before I took orders, asking whether I had ever had +difficulties, and I told you that I had probably never gone deep enough. +It was profoundly true, though I didn't really mean it. But this +year---- No, no, I have not been merely vain and hasty! I may be a +shallow creature, but it has been natural growth, not wantonness.' + +And at last his eyes met Mr. Grey's firmly, almost with solemnity. It +was as if in the last few moments he had been instinctively testing the +quality of his own conduct and motives by the touchstone of the rare +personality beside him; and they had stood the trial. There was such +pain, such sincerity, above all such freedom from littleness of soul +implied in words and look, that Mr. Grey quickly held out his hand. +Robert grasped it, and felt that the way was clear before him. + +'Will you give me an account of it?' said Mr. Grey, and his tone was +grave sympathy itself. 'Or would you rather confine yourself to +generalities and accomplished facts?' + +'I will try and give you an account of it,' said Robert; and sitting +there with his elbows on his knees, his gaze fixed on the yellowing +afternoon sky, and the intricacies of the garden-walls between them and +the new Museum, he went through the history of the last two years. He +described the beginnings of his historical work, the gradual enlargement +of the mind's horizons, and the intrusion within them of question after +question, and subject after subject. Then he mentioned the squire's +name. + +'Ah!' exclaimed Mr. Grey, 'I had forgotten you were that man's +neighbour. I wonder he didn't set you against the whole business, +inhuman old cynic!' + +He spoke with the strong dislike of the idealist, devoted in practice to +an everyday ministry to human need, for the intellectual egotist. Robert +caught and relished the old pugnacious flash in the eye, the Midland +strength of accent. + +'Cynic he is, not altogether inhuman, I think. I fought him about his +drains and his cottages, however,'--and he smiled sadly--'before I began +to read his books. But the man's genius is incontestable, his learning +enormous. He found me in a susceptible state, and I recognise that his +influence immensely accelerated a process already begun.' + +Mr. Grey was struck with the simplicity and fulness of the avowal. A +lesser man would hardly have made it in the same way. Rising to pace up +and down the room--the familiar action recalling vividly to Robert the +Sunday afternoons of bygone years--he began to put questions with a +clearness and decision that made them so many guides to the man +answering, through the tangle of his own recollections. + +'I see,' said the tutor at last, his hands in the pockets of his short +gray coat, his brow bent and thoughtful. 'Well, the process in you has +been the typical process of the present day. Abstract thought has had +little or nothing to say to it. It has been all a question of literary +and historical evidence. _I_ am old-fashioned enough'--and he +smiled--'to stick to the _a priori_ impossibility of miracles, but then +I am a philosopher! _You_ have come to see how miracle is manufactured, +to recognise in it merely a natural inevitable outgrowth of human +testimony, in its pre-scientific stages. It has been all experimental, +inductive. I imagine'--he looked up--'you didn't get much help out of +the orthodox apologists?' + +Robert shrugged his shoulders. + +'It often seemed to me,' he said drearily, 'I might have got through, +but for the men whose books I used to read and respect most in old days. +The point of view is generally so extraordinarily limited. Westcott, +for instance, who means so much nowadays to the English religious world, +first isolates Christianity from all the other religious phenomena of +the world, and then argues upon its details. You might as well isolate +English jurisprudence, and discuss its details without any reference to +Teutonic custom or Roman law! You may be as logical or as learned as you +like within the limits chosen, but the whole result is false! You treat +Christian witness and Biblical literature as you would treat no other +witness, and no other literature in the world. And you cannot show cause +enough. For your reasons depend on the very witness under dispute. And +so you go on arguing in a circle, _ad infinitum_.' + +But his voice dropped. The momentary eagerness died away as quickly as +it had risen, leaving nothing but depression behind it. + +Mr. Grey meditated. At last he said, with a delicate change of tone,-- + +'And now--if I may ask it, Elsmere--how far has this destructive process +gone?' + +'I can't tell you,' said Robert, turning away almost with a groan; 'I +only know that the things I loved once I love still, and that--that--if +I had the heart to think at all, I should see more of God in the world +than I ever saw before!' + +The tutor's eye flashed. Robert had gone back to the window, and was +miserably looking out. After all, he had told only half his story. + +'And so you feel you must give up your living?' + +'What else is there for me to do?' cried Robert, turning upon him, +startled by the slow deliberate tone. + +'Well, of course, you know that there are many men, men with whom both +you and I are acquainted, who hold very much what I imagine your +opinions now are, or will settle into, who are still in the Church of +England, doing admirable work there!' + +'I know,' said Elsmere quickly--'I know; I cannot conceive it, nor could +you. Imagine standing up Sunday after Sunday to say the things you do +_not_ believe,--using words as a convention which those who hear you +receive as literal truth,--and trusting the maintenance of your position +either to your neighbour's forbearance or to your own powers of evasion! +With the ideas at present in my head, nothing would induce me to preach +another Easter Day sermon to a congregation that have both a moral and a +legal right to demand from me an implicit belief in the material +miracle!' + +'Yes,' said the other gravely--'yes, I believe you are right. It can't +be said the Broad Church movement has helped us much! How greatly it +promised!--how little it has performed! For the private person, the +worshipper, it is different--or I think so. No man pries into our +prayers; and to cut ourselves off from common worship is to lose that +fellowship which is in itself a witness and vehicle of God.' + +But his tone had grown hesitating, and touched with melancholy. + +There was a moment's silence. Then Robert walked up to him again. + +'At the same time,' he said falteringly, standing before the elder man, +as he might have stood as an undergraduate, 'let me not be rash! If you +think this change has been too rapid to last--if you, knowing me better +than at this moment I can know myself--if you bid me wait a while, +before I take any overt step, I will wait--oh, God knows I will +wait!--my wife----' and his husky voice failed him utterly. + +'Your wife!' cried Mr. Grey, startled. 'Mrs. Elsmere does not know?' + +'My wife knows nothing, or almost nothing--and it will break her heart!' + +He moved hastily away again, and stood with his back to his friend, his +tall narrow form outlined against the window. Mr. Grey was left in +dismay, rapidly turning over the impressions of Catherine left on him by +his last year's sight of her. That pale distinguished woman with her +look of strength and character,--he remembered Langham's analysis of +her, and of the silent religious intensity she had brought with her from +her training among the northern hills. + +Was there a bitterly human tragedy preparing under all this +thought-drama he had been listening to? + +Deeply moved, he went up to Robert, and laid his rugged hand almost +timidly upon him. + +'Elsmere, it won't break her heart! You are a good man. She is a good +woman.' What an infinity of meaning there was in the simple words! 'Take +courage. Tell her at once--tell her everything--and let _her_ decide +whether there shall be any waiting. I cannot help you there; she can; +she will probably understand you better than you understand yourself.' + +He tightened his grasp, and gently pushed his guest into a chair beside +him. Robert was deadly pale, his face quivering painfully. The long +physical strain of the past months had weakened for the moment all the +controlling forces of the will. Mr. Grey stood over him--the whole man +dilating, expanding, under a tyrannous stress of feeling. + +'It is hard, it is bitter,' he said slowly, with a wonderful manly +tenderness. 'I know it, I have gone through it. So has many and many a +poor soul that you and I have known! But there need be no sting in the +wound unless we ourselves envenom it. I know--oh! I know very well--the +man of the world scoffs, but to him who has once been a Christian of the +old sort, the parting with the Christian mythology is the rending +asunder of bones and marrow. It means parting with half the confidence, +half the joy, of life! But take heart,' and the tone grew still more +solemn, still more penetrating. 'It is the education of God! Do not +imagine it will put you farther from Him! He is in criticism, in +science, in doubt, so long as the doubt is a pure and honest doubt, as +yours is. He is in all life, in all thought. The thought of man, as it +has shaped itself in institutions, in philosophies, in science, in +patient critical work, or in the life of charity, is the one continuous +revelation of God! Look for Him in it all; see how, little by little, +the Divine indwelling force, using as its tools--but _merely_ as its +tools!--man's physical appetites and conditions, has built up conscience +and the moral life; think how every faculty of the mind has been trained +in turn to take its part in the great work of faith upon the visible +world! Love and imagination built up religion,--shall reason destroy it! +No!--reason is God's like the rest! Trust it,--trust him. The leading +strings of the past are dropping from you; they are dropping from the +world, not wantonly, or by chance, but in the providence of God. Learn +the lesson of your own pain,--learn to seek God, not in any single event +of past history, _but in your own soul_,--in the constant verifications +of experience, in the life of Christian love. Spiritually you have gone +through the last wrench; I promise it you! You being what you are, +nothing can cut this ground from under your feet. Whatever may have been +the forms of human belief, _faith_, the faith which saves, has always +been rooted here! All things change,--creeds and philosophies and +outward systems,--but God remains! + + '"Life, that in me has rest, + As I, undying Life, have power in Thee!"' + +The lines dropped with low vibrating force from lips unaccustomed indeed +to such an outburst. The speaker stood a moment longer in silence beside +the figure in the chair, and it seemed to Robert, gazing at him with +fixed eyes, that the man's whole presence, at once so homely and so +majestic, was charged with benediction. It was as though invisible hands +of healing and consecration had been laid upon him. The fiery soul +beside him had kindled anew the drooping life of his own. So the torch +of God passes on its way, hand reaching out to hand. + +He bent forward, stammering incoherent words of assent and gratitude, he +knew not what. Mr. Grey, who had sunk into his chair, gave him time to +recover himself. The intensity of the tutor's own mood relaxed; and +presently he began to talk to his guest, in a wholly different tone, of +the practical detail of the step before him, supposing it to be taken +immediately, discussing the probable attitude of Robert's bishop, the +least conspicuous mode of withdrawing from the living, and so on--all +with gentleness and sympathy indeed, but with an indefinable change of +manner, which showed that he felt it well both for himself and Elsmere +to repress any further expression of emotion. There was something, a +vein of stoicism perhaps, in Mr. Grey's temper of mind, which, while it +gave a special force and sacredness to his rare moments of fervent +speech, was wont in general to make men more self-controlled than usual +in his presence. Robert felt now the bracing force of it. + +'Will you stay with us to dinner?' Mr. Grey asked when at last Elsmere +got up to go. 'There are one or two lone Fellows coming--asked before +your telegram came, of course. Do exactly as you like.' + +'I think not,' said Robert, after a pause. 'I longed to see you, but I +am not fit for general society.' + +Mr. Grey did not press him. He rose and went with his visitor to the +door. + +'Good-bye, good-bye! Let me always know what I can do for you. And your +wife--poor thing, poor thing! Go and tell her, Elsmere; don't lose a +moment you can help. God help her and you!' + +They grasped each other's hands. Mr. Grey followed him down the stairs +and along the narrow hall. He opened the hall door, and smiled a last +smile of encouragement and sympathy into the eyes that expressed such a +young moved gratitude. The door closed. Little did Elsmere realise that +never, in this life, would he see that smile or hear that voice again! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +In half an hour from the time Mr. Grey's door closed upon him, Elsmere +had caught a convenient cross-country train, and had left the Oxford +towers and spires, the shrunken summer Isis, and the flat hot river +meadows far behind him. He had meant to stay at Merton, as we know, for +the night. Now, his one thought was to get back to Catherine. The +urgency of Mr. Grey's words was upon him, and love had a miserable pang +that it should have needed to be urged. + +By eight o'clock he was again at Churton. There were no carriages +waiting at the little station, but the thought of the walk across the +darkening common through the August moonrise had been a refreshment to +him in the heat and crowd of the train. He hurried through the small +town, where the streets were full of summer idlers, and the lamps were +twinkling in the still balmy air, along a dusty stretch of road, leaving +man and his dwellings farther and farther to the rear of him, till at +last he emerged on a boundless tract of common, and struck to the right +into a cart-track leading to Murewell. + +He was on the top of a high sandy ridge, looking west and north, over a +wide evening world of heather and wood and hill. To the right, far +ahead, across the misty lower grounds into which he was soon to plunge, +rose the woods of Murewell, black and massive in the twilight distance. +To the left, but on a nearer plane, the undulating common stretching +downwards from where he stood rose suddenly towards a height crowned +with a group of gaunt and jagged firs--landmarks for all the plain--of +which every ghostly bough and crest was now sharply outlined against a +luminous sky. For the wide heaven in front of him was still delicately +glowing in all its under parts with soft harmonies of dusky red or blue, +while in its higher zone the same tract of sky was closely covered with +the finest network of pearl-white cloud, suffused at the moment with a +silver radiance so intense that a spectator might almost have dreamed +the moon had forgotten its familiar place of rising, and was about to +mount into a startled expectant west. Not a light in all the wide +expanse, and for a while not a sound of human life, save the beat of +Robert's step, or the occasional tap of his stick against the pebbles of +the road. + +Presently he reached the edge of the ridge whence the rough track he was +following sank sharply to the lower levels. Here was a marvellous point +of view, and the rector stood a moment, beside a bare weather-blasted +fir, a ghostly shadow thrown behind him. All around the gorse and +heather seemed still radiating light, as though the air had been so +drenched in sunshine that even long after the sun had vanished the +invading darkness found itself still unable to win firm possession of +earth and sky. Every little stone in the sandy road was still weirdly +visible; the colour of the heather, now in lavish bloom, could be felt +though hardly seen. + +Before him melted line after line of woodland, broken by hollow after +hollow, filled with vaporous wreaths of mist. About him were the sounds +of a wild nature. The air was resonant with the purring of the +night-jars, and every now and then he caught the loud clap of their +wings as they swayed unsteadily through the furze and bracken. Overhead +a trio of wild ducks flew across, from pond to pond, their hoarse cry +descending through the darkness. The partridges on the hill called to +each other, and certain sharp sounds betrayed to the solitary listener +the presence of a flock of swans on a neighbouring pool. + +The rector felt himself alone on a wide earth. It was almost with a +start of pleasure that he caught at last the barking of dogs on a few +distant farms, or the dim thunderous rush of a train through the wide +wooded landscape beyond the heath. Behind that frowning mass of wood lay +the rectory. The lights must be lit in the little drawing-room; +Catherine must be sitting by the lamp, her fine head bent over book or +work, grieving for him perhaps, her anxious expectant heart going out to +him through the dark. He thinks of the village lying wrapped in the +peace of the August night, the lamp rays from shop-front or casement +streaming out on to the green; he thinks of his child, of his dead +mother, feeling heavy and bitter within him all the time the message of +separation and exile. + +But his mood was no longer one of mere dread, of helpless pain, of +miserable self-scorn. Contact with Henry Grey had brought him that +rekindling of the flame of conscience, that medicinal stirring of the +soul's waters, which is the most precious boon that man can give to man. +In that sense which attaches to every successive resurrection of our +best life from the shades of despair or selfishness, he had that day, +almost that hour, been born again. He was no longer filled mainly with +the sense of personal failure, with scorn for his own blundering +impetuous temper, so lacking in prescience and in balance; or, in +respect to his wife, with such an anguished impotent remorse. He was +nerved and braced; whatever oscillations the mind might go through in +its search for another equilibrium, to-night there was a moment of calm. +The earth to him was once more full of God, existence full of value. + +'The things I have always loved, I love still!' he had said to Mr. Grey. +And in this healing darkness it was as if the old loves, the old +familiar images of thought, returned to him new-clad, re-entering the +desolate heart in a white-winged procession of consolation. On the heath +beside him the Christ stood once more, and as the disciple felt the +sacred presence he could bear for the first time to let the chafing +pent-up current of love flow into the new channels, so painfully +prepared for it by the toil of thought. '_Either God or an impostor._' +What scorn the heart, the intellect, threw on the alternative! Not in +the dress of speculations which represent the product of long past, long +superseded looms of human thought, but in the guise of common manhood, +laden like his fellows with the pathetic weight of human weakness and +human ignorance, the Master moves towards him-- + +'_Like you, my son, I struggled and I prayed. Like you, I had my days of +doubt and nights of wrestling. I had my dreams, my delusions, with my +fellows. I was weak; I suffered; I died. But God was in me, and the +courage, the patience, the love He gave to me, the scenes of the poor +human life He inspired, have become by His will the world's eternal +lesson--man's primer of Divine things, hung high in the eyes of all, +simple and wise, that all may see and all may learn. Take it to your +heart again--that life, that pain, of mine! Use it to new ends; +apprehend it in new ways; but knowledge shall not take it from you; and +love, instead of weakening or forgetting, if it be but faithful, shall +find ever fresh power of realising and renewing itself._' + +So said the vision; and carrying the passion of it deep in his heart the +rector went his way, down the long stony hill, past the solitary farm +amid the trees at the foot of it, across the grassy common beyond, with +its sentinel clumps of beeches, past an ethereal string of tiny lakes +just touched by the moonrise, beside some of the first cottages of +Murewell, up the hill, with pulse beating and step quickening, and +round into the stretch of road leading to his own gate. + +As soon as he had passed the screen made by the shrubs on the lawn, he +saw it all as he had seen it in his waking dream on the common--the +lamplight, the open windows, the white muslin curtains swaying a little +in the soft evening air, and Catherine's figure seen dimly through them. + +The noise of the gate, however--of the steps on the drive--had startled +her. He saw her rise quickly from her low chair, put some work down +beside her, and move in haste to the window. + +'Robert!' she cried in amazement. + +'Yes,' he answered, still some yards from her, his voice coming +strangely to her out of the moonlit darkness. 'I did my errand early; I +found I could get back; and here I am.' + +She flew to the door, opened it, and felt herself caught in his arms. + +'Robert, you are quite damp!' she said, fluttering and shrinking, for +all her sweet habitual gravity of manner--was it the passion of that +yearning embrace? 'Have you walked?' + +'Yes. It is the dew on the common, I suppose. The grass was drenched.' + +'Will you have some food? They can bring back the supper directly.' + +'I don't want any food now,' he said, hanging up his hat. 'I got some +lunch in town, and a cup of soup at Reading coming back. Perhaps you +will give me some tea soon--not yet.' + +He came up to her, pushing back the thick disordered locks of hair from +his eyes with one hand, the other held out to her. As he came under the +light of the hall lamp she was so startled by the gray pallor of the +face that she caught hold of his outstretched hand with both hers. What +she said he never knew--her look was enough. He put his arm round her, +and as he opened the drawing-room door holding her pressed against him, +she felt the desperate agitation in him penetrating, beating against an +almost iron self-control of manner. He shut the door behind them. + +'Robert, dear Robert!' she said, clinging to him, 'there is bad +news,--tell me--there is something to tell me! Oh! what is it--what is +it?' + +It was almost like a child's wail. His brow contracted still more +painfully. + +'My darling,' he said; 'my darling--my dear dear wife!' and he bent his +head down to her as she lay against his breast, kissing her hair with a +passion of pity, of remorse, of tenderness, which seemed to rend his +whole nature. + +'Tell me--tell me--Robert!' + +He guided her gently across the room, past the sofa over which her work +lay scattered, past the flower-table, now a many-coloured mass of roses, +which was her especial pride, past the remains of a brick castle which +had delighted Mary's wondering eyes and mischievous fingers an hour or +two before, to a low chair by the open window looking on the wide +moonlit expanse of cornfield. He put her into it, walked to the window +on the other side of the room, shut it, and drew down the blind. Then he +went back to her, and sank down beside her, kneeling, her hands in his. + +'My dear wife--you have loved me--you do love me?' + +She could not answer, she could only press his hands with her cold +fingers, with a look and gesture that implored him to speak. + +'Catherine,' he said, still kneeling before her, 'you remember that +night you came down to me in the study, the night I told you I was in +trouble and you could not help me. Did you guess from what I said what +the trouble was?' + +'Yes,' she answered, trembling, 'yes, I did, Robert; I thought you were +depressed--troubled--about religion.' + +'And I know,' he said with an outburst of feeling, kissing her hands as +they lay in his--'I know very well that you went upstairs and prayed for +me, my white-souled angel! But Catherine, the trouble grew--it got +blacker and blacker. You were there beside me, and you could not help +me. I dared not tell you about it; I could only struggle on alone, so +terribly alone, sometimes; and now I am beaten, beaten. And I come to +you to ask you to help me in the only thing that remains to me. Help me, +Catherine, to be an honest man--to follow conscience--to say and do the +truth!' + +'Robert,' she said piteously, deadly pale, 'I don't understand.' + +'Oh, my poor darling!' he cried, with a kind of moan of pity and misery. +Then still holding her, he said, with strong deliberate emphasis, +looking into the gray-blue eyes--the quivering face so full of austerity +and delicacy,-- + +'For six or seven months, Catherine--really for much longer, though I +never knew it--I have been fighting with _doubt_--doubt of orthodox +Christianity--doubt of what the Church teaches--of what I have to say +and preach every Sunday. First it crept on me I knew not how. Then the +weight grew heavier, and I began to struggle with it. I felt I must +struggle with it. Many men, I suppose, in my position would have +trampled on their doubts--would have regarded them as sin in themselves, +would have felt it their duty to ignore them as much as possible, +trusting to time and God's help. I _could_ not ignore them. The thought +of questioning the most sacred beliefs that you and I'--and his voice +faltered a moment--'held in common was misery to me. On the other hand, +I knew myself. I knew that I could no more go on living to any purpose, +with a whole region of the mind shut up, as it were, barred away from +the rest of me, than I could go on living with a secret between myself +and you. I could not hold my faith by a mere tenure of tyranny and fear. +Faith that is not free--that is not the faith of the whole creature, +body, soul, and intellect--seemed to me a faith worthless both to God +and man!' + +Catherine looked at him stupefied. The world seemed to be turning round +her. Infinitely more terrible than his actual words was the accent +running through words and tone and gesture--the accent of +irreparableness, as of something dismally _done_ and _finished_. What +did it all mean? For what had he brought her there? She sat stunned, +realising with awful force the feebleness, the inadequacy, of her own +fears. + +He, meanwhile, had paused a moment, meeting her gaze with those yearning +sunken eyes. Then he went on, his voice changing a little,-- + +'But if I had wished it ever so much, I could not have helped myself. +The process, so to speak, had gone too far by the time I knew where I +was. I think the change must have begun before the Mile End time. +Looking back, I see the foundations were laid in--in--the work of last +winter.' + +She shivered. He stooped and kissed her hands again passionately. 'Am I +poisoning even the memory of our past for you?' he cried. Then, +restraining himself at once, he hurried on again: 'After Mile End you +remember I began to see much of the squire. Oh, my wife, don't look at +me so! It was not his doing in any true sense. I am not such a weak +shuttlecock as that! But being where I was before our intimacy began, +his influence hastened everything. I don't wish to minimise it. I was +not made to stand alone!' + +And again that bitter, perplexed, half-scornful sense of his own pliancy +at the hands of circumstance as compared with the rigidity of other men +descended upon him. Catherine made a faint movement as though to draw +her hands away. + +'Was it well,' she said, in a voice which sounded like a harsh echo of +her own, 'was it right for a clergyman to discuss sacred things--with +such a man?' + +He let her hands go, guided for the moment by a delicate imperious +instinct which bade him appeal to something else than love. Rising, he +sat down opposite to her on the low window seat, while she sank back +into her chair, her fingers clinging to the arm of it, the lamplight far +behind deepening all the shadows of the face, the hollows in the cheeks, +the line of experience and will about the mouth. The stupor in which she +had just listened to him was beginning to break up. Wild forces of +condemnation and resistance were rising in her; and he knew it. He knew, +too, that as yet she only half realised the situation, and that blow +after blow still remained to him to deal. + +'Was it right that I should discuss religious matters with the squire?' +he repeated, his face resting on his hands. 'What are religious matters, +Catherine, and what are not?' + +Then, still controlling himself rigidly, his eyes fixed on the shadowy +face of his wife, his ear catching her quick uneven breath, he went once +more through the dismal history of the last few months, dwelling on his +state of thought before the intimacy with Mr. Wendover began, on his +first attempts to escape the squire's influence, on his gradual pitiful +surrender. Then he told the story of the last memorable walk before the +squire's journey, of the moment in the study afterwards, and of the +months of feverish reading and wrestling which had followed. Half-way +through it a new despair seized him. What was the good of all he was +saying? He was speaking a language she did not really understand. What +were all these critical and literary considerations to her? + +The rigidity of her silence showed him that her sympathy was not with +him, that in comparison with the vibrating protest of her own passionate +faith which must be now ringing through her, whatever he could urge must +seem to her the merest culpable trifling with the soul's awful +destinies. In an instant of tumultuous speech he could not convey to her +the temper and results of his own complex training, and on that +training, as he very well knew, depended the piercing, convincing force +of all that he was saying. There were gulfs between them--gulfs which, +as it seemed to him, in a miserable insight, could never be bridged +again. Oh, the frightful separateness of experience! + +Still he struggled on. He brought the story down to the conversation at +the Hall, described--in broken words of fire and pain--the moment of +spiritual wreck which had come upon him in the August lane, his night of +struggle, his resolve to go to Mr. Grey. And all through he was not so +much narrating as pleading a cause, and that not his own, but Love's. +Love was at the bar, and it was for love that the eloquent voice, the +pale varying face, were really pleading, through all the long story of +intellectual change. + +At the mention of Mr. Grey Catherine grew restless; she sat up suddenly, +with a cry of bitterness. + +'Robert, why did you go away from me? It was cruel. I should have known +first. He had no right--no right!' + +She clasped her hands round her knees, her beautiful mouth set and +stern. The moon had been sailing westward all this time, and as +Catherine bent forward the yellow light caught her face, and brought out +the haggard change in it. He held out his hands to her with a low groan, +helpless against her reproach, her jealousy. He dared not speak of what +Mr. Grey had done for him, of the tenderness of his counsel towards her +specially. He felt that everything he could say would but torture the +wounded heart still more. + +But she did not notice the outstretched hands. She covered her face in +silence a moment, as though trying to see her way more clearly through +the mazes of disaster; and he waited. At last she looked up. + +'I cannot follow all you have been saying,' she said, almost harshly. 'I +know so little of books, I cannot give them the place you do. You say +you have convinced yourself the Gospels are like other books, full of +mistakes, and credulous, like the people of the time; and therefore you +can't take what they say as you used to take it. But what does it all +quite mean? Oh, I am not clever--I cannot see my way clear from thing to +thing as you do. If there are mistakes, does it matter so--so--terribly +to you?' and she faltered. 'Do you think _nothing_ is true because +something may be false? Did not--did not--Jesus still live, and die, and +rise again?--_can_ you doubt--_do_ you doubt--that He rose--that He is +God--that He is in heaven--that we shall see Him?' + +She threw an intensity into every word, which made the short breathless +questions thrill through him, through the nature saturated and steeped +as hers was in Christian association, with a bitter accusing force. But +he did not flinch from them. + +'I can believe no longer in an Incarnation and Resurrection,' he said +slowly, but with a resolute plainness. 'Christ is risen in our hearts, +in the Christian life of charity. Miracle is a natural product of human +feeling and imagination; and God was in Jesus--pre-eminently, as He is +in all great souls, but not otherwise--not otherwise in kind than He is +in me or you.' + +His voice dropped to a whisper. She grew paler and paler. + +'So to you,' she said presently in the same strange altered voice. 'My +father--when I saw that light on his face before he died, when I heard +him cry, "Master, _I come!_" was dying--deceived--deluded. Perhaps +even,' and she trembled, 'you think it ends here--our life--our love?' + +It was agony to him to see her driving herself through this piteous +catechism. The lantern of memory flashed a moment on to the immortal +picture of Faust and Margaret. Was it not only that winter they had read +the scene together? + +Forcibly he possessed himself once more of those closely locked hands, +pressing their coldness on his own burning eyes and forehead in hopeless +silence. + +'_Do_ you, Robert?' she repeated insistently. + +'I know nothing,' he said, his eyes still hidden. 'I know nothing! But I +trust God with all that is dearest to me, with our love, with the soul +that is His breath, His work in us!' + +The pressure of her despair seemed to be wringing his own faith out of +him, forcing into definiteness things and thoughts that had been lying +in an accepted, even a welcomed, obscurity. + +She tried again to draw her hands away, but he would not let them go. +'And the end of it all, Robert?' she said--'the end of it?' + +Never did he forget the note of that question, the desolation of it, the +indefinable change of accent. It drove him into a harsh abruptness of +reply. + +'The end of it--so far--must be, if I remain an honest man, that I must +give up my living, that I must cease to be a minister of the Church of +England. What the course of our life after that shall be is in your +hands--absolutely.' + +She caught her breath painfully. His heart was breaking for her, and yet +there was something in her manner now which kept down caresses and +repressed all words. + +Suddenly, however, as he sat there mutely watching her, he found her at +his knees, her dear arms around him, her face against his breast. + +'Robert, my husband, my darling, it _cannot_ be! It is a madness--a +delusion. God is trying you, and me! You cannot be planning so to desert +Him, so to deny Christ--you cannot, my husband. Come away with me, away +from books and work, into some quiet place where He can make Himself +heard. You are overdone, overdriven. Do nothing now--say nothing--except +to me. Be patient a little, and He will give you back Himself! What can +books and arguments matter to you or me? Have we not _known_ and _felt_ +Him as He is--have we not, Robert? Come!' + +She pushed herself backwards, smiling at him with an exquisite +tenderness. The tears were streaming down her cheeks. They were wet on +his own. Another moment and Robert would have lost the only clue which +remained to him through the mists of this bewildering world. He would +have yielded again as he had many times yielded before, for infinitely +less reason, to the urgent pressure of another's individuality, and +having jeopardised love for truth, he would now have murdered--or tried +to murder--in himself the sense of truth for love. + +But he did neither. + +Holding her close pressed against him, he said in breaks of intense +speech: 'If you wish, Catherine, I will wait--I will wait till you bid +me speak--but I warn you--there is something dead in me--something gone +and broken. It can never live again--except in forms which now it would +only pain you more to think of. It is not that I think differently of +this point or that point--but of life and religion altogether. I see +God's purposes in quite other proportions as it were. Christianity seems +to me something small and local. Behind it, around it--including it--I +see the great drama of the world, sweeping on--led by God--from change +to change, from act to act. It is not that Christianity is false, but +that it is only an imperfect human reflection of a part of truth. Truth +has never been, can never be, contained in any one creed or system!' + +She heard, but through her exhaustion, through the bitter sinking of +hope, she only half understood. Only she realised that she and he were +alike helpless--both struggling in the grip of some force outside +themselves, inexorable, ineluctable. + +Robert felt her arms relaxing, felt the dead weight of her form against +him. He raised her to her feet, he half carried her to the door, and +on to the stairs. She was nearly fainting, but her will held it +at bay. He threw open the door of their room, led her in, lifted +her--unresisting--on to the bed. Then her head fell to one side, and her +lips grew ashen. In an instant or two he had done for her all that his +medical knowledge could suggest with rapid decided hands. She was not +quite unconscious; she drew up round her, as though with a strong vague +sense of chill, the shawl he laid over her, and gradually the slightest +shade of colour came back to her lips. But as soon as she opened her +eyes and met those of Robert fixed upon her, the heavy lids dropped +again. + +'Would you rather be alone?' he said to her, kneeling beside her. + +She made a faint affirmative movement of the head, and the cold hand he +had been chafing tried feebly to withdraw itself. He rose at once, and +stood a moment beside her, looking down at her. Then he went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +He shut the door softly, and went downstairs again. It was between ten +and eleven. The lights in the lower passage were just extinguished; +every one else in the house had gone to bed. Mechanically he stooped and +put away the child's bricks, he pushed the chairs back into their +places, and then he paused a while before the open window. But there was +not a tremor on the set face. He felt himself capable of no more +emotion. The fount of feeling, of pain, was for the moment dried up. +What he was mainly noticing was the effect of some occasional gusts of +night-wind on the moonlit cornfield; the silver ripples they sent +through it; the shadows thrown by some great trees in the western +corners of the field; the glory of the moon itself in the pale immensity +of the sky. + +Presently he turned away, leaving one lamp still burning in the room, +softly unlocked the hall door, took his hat, and went out. He walked up +and down the woodpath or sat on the bench there for some time, thinking +indeed, but thinking with a certain stern practical dryness. Whenever he +felt the thrill of feeling stealing over him again, he would make a +sharp effort at repression. Physically he could not bear much more, and +he knew it. A part remained for him to play, which must be played with +tact, with prudence, and with firmness. Strength and nerves had been +sufficiently weakened already. For his wife's sake, his people's sake, +his honourable reputation's sake, he must guard himself from a collapse +which might mean far more than physical failure. + +So in the most patient methodical way he began to plan out the immediate +future. As to waiting, the matter was still in Catherine's hands; but he +knew that finely tempered soul; he knew that when she had mastered her +poor woman's self, as she had always mastered it from her childhood, she +would not bid him wait. He hardly took the possibility into +consideration. The proposal had had some reality in his eyes when he +went to see Mr. Grey; now it had none, though he could hardly have +explained why. + +He had already made arrangements with an old Oxford friend to take his +duty during his absence on the Continent. It had been originally +suggested that this Mr. Armitstead should come to Murewell on the Monday +following the Sunday they were now approaching, spend a few days with +them before their departure, and be left to his own devices in the house +and parish, about the Thursday or Friday. An intense desire now seized +Robert to get hold of the man at once, before the next Sunday. It was +strange how the interview with his wife seemed to have crystallised, +precipitated, everything. How infinitely more real the whole matter +looked to him since the afternoon! It had passed--at any rate for the +time--out of the region of thought, into the hurrying evolution of +action, and as soon as action began it was characteristic of Robert's +rapid energetic nature to feel this thirst, to make it as prompt, as +complete, as possible. The fiery soul yearned for a fresh consistency, +though it were a consistency of loss and renunciation. + +To-morrow he must write to the bishop. The bishop's residence was only +eight or ten miles from Murewell; he supposed his interview with him +would take place about Monday or Tuesday. He could see the tall stooping +figure of the kindly old man rising to meet him; he knew exactly the +sort of arguments that would be brought to bear upon him. Oh, that it +were done with--this wearisome dialectical necessity! His life for +months had been one long argument. If he were but left free to feel, and +live again! + +The practical matter which weighed most heavily upon him was the +function connected with the opening of the new Institute, which had been +fixed for the Saturday--the next day but one. How was he--but much more +how was Catherine--to get through it? His lips would be sealed as to any +possible withdrawal from the living, for he could not by then have seen +the bishop. He looked forward to the gathering, the crowds, the local +enthusiasm, the signs of his own popularity, with a sickening distaste. +The one thing real to him through it all would be Catherine's white +face, and their bitter joint consciousness. + +And then he said to himself, sharply, that his own feelings counted for +nothing. Catherine should be tenderly shielded from all avoidable pain, +but for himself there must be no flinching, no self-indulgent weakness. +Did he not owe every last hour he had to give to the people amongst whom +he had planned to spend the best energies of life, and for whom his own +act was about to part him in this lame impotent fashion? + +Midnight! The sounds rolled silverly out, effacing the soft murmurs of +the night. So the long interminable day was over, and a new morning had +begun. He rose, listening to the echoes of the bell, and--as the tide of +feeling surged back upon him--passionately commending the new-born day +to God. + +Then he turned towards the house, put the light out in the drawing-room, +and went upstairs, stepping cautiously. He opened the door of +Catherine's room. The moonlight was streaming in through the white +blinds. Catherine, who had undressed, was lying now with her face hidden +in the pillow, and one white-sleeved arm flung across little Mary's cot. +The night was hot, and the child would evidently have thrown off all its +coverings had it not been for the mother's hand, which lay lightly on +the tiny shoulder, keeping one thin blanket in its place. + +'Catherine,' he whispered, standing beside her. + +She turned, and by the light of the candle he held shaded from her he +saw the austere remoteness of her look, as of one who had been going +through deep waters of misery, alone with God. His heart sank. For the +first time that look seemed to exclude him from her inmost life. + +He sank down beside her, took the hand lying on the child, and laid down +his head upon it, mutely kissing it. But he said nothing. Of what +further avail could words be just then to either of them? Only he felt +through every fibre the coldness, the irresponsiveness of those fingers +lying in his. + +'Would it prevent your sleeping,' he asked her presently, 'if I came to +read here, as I used to when you were ill? I could shade the light from +you, of course.' + +She raised her head suddenly. + +'But you--you ought to sleep.' + +Her tone was anxious, but strangely quiet and aloof. + +'Impossible!' he said, pressing his hand over his eyes as he rose. 'At +any rate I will read first.' + +His sleeplessness at any time of excitement or strain was so inveterate, +and so familiar to them both by now, that she could say nothing. She +turned away with a long sobbing breath, which seemed to go through her +from head to foot. He stood a moment beside her, fighting strong +impulses of remorse and passion, and ultimately maintaining silence and +self-control. + +In another minute or two he was sitting beside her feet, in a low chair +drawn to the edge of the bed, the light arranged so as to reach his book +without touching either mother or child. He had run over the book-shelf +in his own room, shrinking painfully from any of his common religious +favourites as one shrinks from touching a still sore and throbbing +nerve, and had at last carried off a volume of Spenser. + +And so the night began to wear away. For the first hour or two, every +now and then, a stifled sob would make itself just faintly heard. It was +a sound to wring the heart, for what it meant was that not even +Catherine Elsmere's extraordinary powers of self-suppression could avail +to check the outward expression of an inward torture. Each time it came +and went, it seemed to Elsmere that a fraction of his youth went with +it. + +At last exhaustion brought her a restless sleep. As soon as Elsmere +caught the light breathing which told him she was not conscious of her +grief, or of him, his book slipped on to his knee. + + 'Open the temple gates unto my love, + Open them wide that she may enter in, + And all the posts adorn as doth behove, + And all the pillars deck with garlands trim, + For to receive this saint with honour due + That cometh in to you. + With trembling steps and humble reverence, + She cometh in before the Almighty's view.' + +The leaves fell over as the book dropped, and these lines, which had +been to him, as to other lovers, the utterance of his own bridal joy, +emerged. They brought about him a host of images--a little gray church +penetrated everywhere by the roar of a swollen river; outside, a road +filled with empty farmers' carts, and shouting children carrying +branches of mountain-ash--winding on and up into the heart of wild hills +dyed with reddening fern, the sun-gleams stealing from crag to crag, and +shoulder to shoulder; inside, row after row of intent faces, all turned +towards the central passage, and, moving towards him, a figure 'clad all +in white, that seems a virgin best,' whose every step brings nearer to +him the heaven of his heart's desire. Everything is plain to him--Mrs. +Thornburgh's round cheeks and marvellous curls and jubilant airs, Mrs. +Leyburn's mild and tearful pleasure, the vicar's solid satisfaction. +With what confiding joy had those who loved her given her to him! And he +knows well that out of all griefs, the grief he has brought upon her in +two short years is the one which will seem to her hardest to bear. Very +few women of the present day could feel this particular calamity as +Catherine Elsmere must feel it. + +'Was it a crime to love and win you, my darling?' he cried to her in his +heart. 'Ought I to have had more self-knowledge? could I have guessed +where I was taking you? Oh, how could I know--how could I know.' + +But it was impossible to him to sink himself wholly in the past. +Inevitably such a nature as Elsmere's turns very quickly from despair to +hope; from the sense of failure to the passionate planning of new +effort. In time will he not be able to comfort her, and, after a +miserable moment of transition, to repair her trust in him and make +their common life once more rich towards God and man? There must be +painful readjustment and friction, no doubt. He tries to see the facts +as they truly are, fighting against his own optimist tendencies, and +realising as best he can all the changes which his great change must +introduce into their most intimate relations. But after all can love and +honesty and a clear conscience do nothing to bridge over, nay, to +efface, such differences as theirs will be? + +Oh to bring her to understand him! At this moment he shrinks painfully +from the thought of touching her faith--his own sense of loss is too +heavy, too terrible. But if she will only be still open with him!--still +give him her deepest heart, any lasting difference between them will +surely be impossible. Each will complete the other, and love knit up the +ravelled strands again into a stronger unity. + +Gradually he lost himself in half-articulate prayer, in the solemn +girding of the will to this future task of a recreating love. And by the +time the morning light had well established itself sleep had fallen on +him. When he became sensible of the longed-for drowsiness, he merely +stretched out a tired hand and drew over him a shawl hanging at the foot +of the bed. He was too utterly worn out to think of moving. + +When he woke the sun was streaming into the room, and behind him sat the +tiny Mary on the edge of the bed, the rounded apple cheeks and wild-bird +eyes aglow with mischief and delight. She had climbed out of her cot, +and, finding no check to her progress, had crept on, till now she sat +triumphantly, with one diminutive leg and rosy foot doubled under her, +and her father's thick hair at the mercy of her invading fingers, which, +however, were as yet touching him half timidly, as though something in +his sleep had awed the baby sense. + +But Catherine was gone. + +He sprang up with a start. Mary was frightened by the abrupt movement, +perhaps disappointed by the escape of her prey, and raised a sudden +wail. + +He carried her to her nurse, even forgetting to kiss the little wet +cheek, ascertained that Catherine was not in the house, and then came +back, miserable, with the bewilderment of sleep still upon him. A sense +of wrong rose high within him. How _could_ she have left him thus +without a word? + +It had been her way, sometimes, during the summer, to go out early to +one or other of the sick folk who were under her especial charge. +Possibly she had gone to a woman, just confined, on the farther side of +the village, who yesterday had been in danger. + +But, whatever explanation he could make for himself, he was none the +less irrationally wretched. He bathed, dressed, and sat down to his +solitary meal in a state of tension and agitation indescribable. All the +exaltation, the courage of the night, was gone. + +Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, and no sign of Catherine. + +'Your mistress must have been detained somewhere,' he said as quietly +and carelessly as he could to Susan, the parlour-maid, who had been with +them since their marriage. 'Leave breakfast things for one.' + +'Mistress took a cup of milk when she went out, cook says,' observed the +little maid with a consoling intention, wondering the while at the +rector's haggard mien and restless movements. + +'Nursing other people indeed!' she observed severely downstairs, glad as +we all are at times to pick holes in excellence which is inconveniently +high. 'Missis had a deal better stay at home and nurse _him_!' + +The day was excessively hot. Not a leaf moved in the garden; over the +cornfield the air danced in long vibrations of heat; the woods and hills +beyond were indistinct and colourless. Their dog Dandy lay sleeping in +the sun, waking up every now and then to avenge himself on the flies. On +the far edge of the cornfield reaping was beginning. Robert stood on the +edge of the sunk fence, his blind eyes resting on the line of men, his +ear catching the shouts of the farmer directing operations from his gray +horse. He could do nothing. The night before, in the wood-path, he had +clearly mapped out the day's work. A mass of business was waiting, +clamouring to be done. He tried to begin on this or that, and gave up +everything with a groan, wandering out again to the gate on to the +wood-path to sweep the distances of road or field with hungry straining +eyes. + +The wildest fears had taken possession of him. Running in his head was a +passage from _The confessions_, describing Monica's horror of her son's +heretical opinions. 'Shrinking from and detesting the blasphemies of his +error, she began to doubt whether it was right in her to allow her son +to live in her house and to eat at the same table with her;' and the +mother's heart, he remembered, could only be convinced of the lawfulness +of its own yearning by a prophetic vision of the youth's conversion. He +recalled, with a shiver, how in the life of Madame Guyon, after +describing the painful and agonising death of a kind but comparatively +irreligious husband, she quietly adds, 'As soon as I heard that my +husband had just expired, I said to Thee, O my God, Thou hast broken my +bonds, and I will offer to Thee a sacrifice of praise!' He thought of +John Henry Newman, disowning all the ties of kinship with his younger +brother because of divergent views on the question of baptismal +regeneration; of the long tragedy of Blanco White's life, caused by the +slow dropping-off of friend after friend, on the ground of heretical +belief. What right had he, or any one in such a strait as his, to assume +that the faith of the present is no longer capable of the same stern +self-destructive consistency as the faith of the past? He knew that to +such Christian purity, such Christian inwardness as Catherine's, the +ultimate sanction and legitimacy of marriage rest, both in theory and +practice, on a common acceptance of the definite commands and promises +of a miraculous revelation. He had had a proof of it in Catherine's +passionate repugnance to the idea of Rose's marriage with Edward +Langham. + +Eleven o'clock striking from the distant tower. He walked desperately +along the wood-path, meaning to go through the copse at the end of it +towards the park, and look there. He had just passed into the copse, a +thick interwoven mass of young trees, when he heard the sound of the +gate which on the farther side of it led on to the road. He hurried on; +the trees closed behind him; the grassy path broadened; and there, under +an arch of young oak and hazel, stood Catherine, arrested by the sound +of his step. He, too, stopped at the sight of her; he could not go on. +Husband and wife looked at each other one long quivering moment. Then +Catherine sprang forward with a sob and threw herself on his breast. + +They clung to each other, she in a passion of tears--tears of such +self-abandonment as neither Robert nor any other living soul had ever +seen Catherine Elsmere shed before. As for him he was trembling from +head to foot, his arms scarcely strong enough to hold her, his young +worn face bent down over her. + +'Oh, Robert!' she sobbed at last, putting up her hand and touching his +hair, 'you look so pale, so sad.' + +'I have you again!' he said simply. + +A thrill of remorse ran through her. + +'I went away,' she murmured, her face still hidden--'I went away, +because when I woke up it all seemed to me, suddenly, too ghastly to be +believed; I could not stay still and bear it. But, Robert, Robert, I +kissed you as I passed! I was so thankful you could sleep a little and +forget. I hardly know where I have been most of the time--I think I have +been sitting in a corner of the park, where no one ever comes. I began +to think of all you said to me last night--to put it together--to try +and understand it, and it seemed to me more and more horrible! I thought +of what it would be like to have to hide my prayers from you--my faith +in Christ--my hope of heaven. I thought of bringing up the child--how +all that was vital to me would be a superstition to you, which you would +bear with for my sake. I thought of death,' and she shuddered--'your +death, or my death, and how this change in you would cleave a gulf of +misery between us. And then I thought of losing my own faith, of denying +Christ. It was a nightmare--I saw myself on a long road, escaping with +Mary in my arms, escaping from you! Oh, Robert! it wasn't only for +myself,'--and she clung to him as though she were a child, confessing, +explaining away, some grievous fault hardly to be forgiven. 'I was +agonised by the thought that I was not my own--I and my child were +_Christ's_. Could I risk what was His? Other men and women had died, had +given up all for His sake. Is there no one now strong enough to suffer +torment, to kill even love itself rather than deny Him--rather than +crucify Him afresh?' + +She paused, struggling for breath. The terrible excitement of that +bygone moment had seized upon her again and communicated itself to him. + +'And then--and then,' she said sobbing, 'I don't know how it was. One +moment I was sitting up looking straight before me, without a tear, +thinking of what was the least I must do, even--even--if you and I +stayed together--of all the hard compacts and conditions I must +make--judging you all the while from a long, long distance, and feeling +as though I had buried the old self--sacrificed the old heart--for ever! +And the next I was lying on the ground crying for you, Robert, crying +for you! Your face had come back to me as you lay there in the early +morning light. I thought how I had kissed you--how pale and gray and +thin you looked. Oh, how I loathed myself! That I should think it could +be God's will that I should leave you, or torture you, my poor husband! +I had not only been wicked towards you--I had offended Christ. I could +think of nothing as I lay there--again and again--but "_Little children, +love one another; little children, love one another._" Oh, my +beloved,'--and she looked up with the solemnest, tenderest smile +breaking on the marred tear-stained face,--'I will never give up hope, I +will pray for you night and day. God will bring you back. You cannot +lose yourself so. No, no! His grace is stronger than our wills. But I +will not preach to you--I will not persecute you--I will only live +beside you--in your heart--and love you always. Oh, how could I--how +could I have such thoughts!' + +And again she broke off, weeping, as if to the tender torn heart the +only crime that could not be forgiven was its own offence against love. +As for him he was beyond speech. If he had ever lost his vision of God, +his wife's love would that moment have given it back to him. + +'Robert,' she said presently, urged on by the sacred yearning to heal, +to atone, 'I will not complain--I will not ask you to wait. I take your +word for it that it is best not, that it would do no good. The only hope +is in time--and prayer. I must suffer, dear, I must be weak sometimes; +but oh, I am so sorry for you! Kiss me, forgive me, Robert; I will be +your faithful wife unto our lives' end.' + +He kissed her, and in that kiss, so sad, so pitiful, so clinging, their +new life was born. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +But the problem of these two lives was not solved by a burst of feeling. +Without that determining impulse of love and pity in Catherine's heart +the salvation of an exquisite bond might indeed have been impossible. +But in spite of it the laws of character had still to work themselves +inexorably out on either side. + +The whole gist of the matter for Elsmere lay really in this question: +Hidden in Catherine's nature, was there, or was there not, the true +stuff of fanaticism? Madame Guyon left her infant children to the +mercies of chance, while she followed the voice of God to the holy war +with heresy. Under similar conditions Catherine Elsmere might have +planned the same. Could she ever have carried it out? + +And yet the question is still ill stated. For the influences of our +modern time on religious action are so blunting and dulling, because in +truth the religious motive itself is being constantly modified, whether +the religious person knows it or not. Is it possible now for a good +woman with a heart, in Catherine Elsmere's position, to maintain herself +against love, and all those subtle forces to which such a change as +Elsmere's opens the house doors, without either hardening, or greatly +yielding? Let Catherine's further story give some sort of an answer. + +Poor soul! As they sat together in the study, after he had brought her +home, Robert, with averted eyes, went through the plans he had already +thought into shape. Catherine listened, saying almost nothing. But +never, never had she loved this life of theirs so well as now that she +was called on, at barely a week's notice, to give it up for ever! For +Robert's scheme, in which her reason fully acquiesced, was to keep to +their plan of going to Switzerland, he having first, of course, settled +all things with the bishop, and having placed his living in the hands of +Mowbray Elsmere. When they left the rectory, in a week or ten days' +time, he proposed, in fact, his voice almost inaudible as he did so, +that Catherine should leave it for good. + +'Everybody had better suppose,' he said choking, 'that we are coming +back. Of course we need say nothing. Armitstead will be here for next +week certainly. Then afterwards I can come down and manage everything. I +shall get it over in a day if I can, and see nobody. I cannot say +good-bye, nor can you.' + +'And next Sunday, Robert?' she asked him, after a pause. + +'I shall write to Armitstead this afternoon and ask him, if he possibly +can, to come to-morrow afternoon, instead of Monday, and take the +service.' + +Catherine's hands clasped each other still more closely. So then she had +heard her husband's voice for the last time in the public ministry of +the Church, in prayer, in exhortation, in benediction! One of the most +sacred traditions of her life was struck from her at a blow. + +It was long before either of them spoke again. Then she ventured another +question. + +'And have you any idea of what we shall do next, Robert--of--of our +future?' + +'Shall we try London for a little?' he answered in a queer strained +voice, leaning against the window, and looking out, that he might not +see her. 'I should find work among the poor--so would you--and I could +go on with my book. And your mother and sister will probably be there +part of the winter.' + +She acquiesced silently. How mean and shrunken a future it seemed to +them both, beside the wide and honourable range of his clergyman's life +as he and she had developed it. But she did not dwell long on that. Her +thoughts were suddenly invaded by the memory of a cottage tragedy in +which she had recently taken a prominent part. A girl, a child of +fifteen, from one of the crowded Mile End hovels, had gone at Christmas +to a distant farm as servant, and come back a month ago, ruined, the +victim of an outrage over which Elsmere had ground his teeth in fierce +and helpless anger. Catherine had found her a shelter, and was to see +her through her 'trouble'; the girl, a frail half-witted creature, who +could find no words even to bewail herself, clinging to her the while +with the dumbest, pitifulest tenacity. + +How _could_ she leave that girl? It was as if all the fibres of life +were being violently wrenched from all their natural connections. + +'Robert!' she cried at last with a start. 'Had you forgotten the +Institute to-morrow?' + +'No--no,' he said with the saddest smile. 'No, I had not forgotten it. +Don't go, Catherine--don't go. I must. But why should you go through +it?' + +'But there are all those flags and wreaths,' she said, getting up in +pained bewilderment. 'I must go and look after them.' + +He caught her in his arms. + +'Oh, my wife, my wife, forgive me!' It was a groan of misery. She put up +her hands and pressed his hair back from his temples. + +'I love you, Robert,' she said simply, her face colourless, but +perfectly calm. + +Half an hour later, after he had worked through some letters, he went +into the workroom and found her surrounded with flags, and a vast litter +of paper roses and evergreens, which she and the new agent's daughters +who had come up to help her were putting together for the decorations of +the morrow. Mary was tottering from chair to chair in high glee, a big +pink rose stuck in the belt of her pinafore. His pale wife, trying to +smile and talk as usual, her lap full of evergreens, and her politeness +exercised by the chatter of the two Miss Batesons, seemed to Robert one +of the most pitiful spectacles he had ever seen. He fled from it out +into the village driven by a restless longing for change and movement. + +Here he found a large gathering round the new Institute. There were +carpenters at work on a triumphal arch in front, and close by, an +admiring circle of children and old men, huddling in the shade of a +great chestnut. + +Elsmere spent an hour in the building, helping and superintending, +stabbed every now and then by the unsuspecting friendliness of those +about him, or worried by their blunt comments on his looks. He could not +bear more than a glance into the new rooms apportioned to the +Naturalists' Club. There against the wall stood the new glass cases he +had wrung out of the squire, with various new collections lying near, +ready to be arranged and unpacked when time allowed. The old collections +stood out bravely in the added space and light; the walls were hung here +and there with a wonderful set of geographical pictures he had carried +off from a London exhibition, and fed his boys on for weeks; the floors +were freshly matted; the new pine fittings gave out their pleasant +cleanly scent; the white paint of doors and windows shone in the August +sun. The building had been given by the squire. The fittings and +furniture had been mainly of his providing. What uses he had planned for +it all!--only to see the fruits of two years' effort out of doors, and +personal frugality at home, handed over to some possibly unsympathetic +stranger. The heart beat painfully against the iron bars of fate, +rebelling against the power of a mental process so to affect a man's +whole practical and social life! + +He went out at last by the back of the Institute, where a little bit of +garden, spoilt with building materials, led down to a lane. + +At the end of the garden, beside the untidy gap in the hedge made by the +builders' carts, he saw a man standing, who turned away down the lane, +however, as soon as the rector's figure emerged into view. + +Robert had recognised the slouching gait and unwieldy form of Henslowe. +There were at this moment all kinds of gruesome stories afloat in the +village about the ex-agent. It was said that he was breaking up fast; it +was known that he was extensively in debt; and the village shopkeepers +had already held an agitated meeting or two, to decide upon the best +mode of getting their money out of him, and upon a joint plan of +cautious action towards his custom in future. The man, indeed, was +sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of sordid misery, maintaining all +the while a snarling exasperating front to the world, which was rapidly +converting the careless half-malicious pity wherewith the village had +till now surveyed his fall into that more active species of baiting +which the human animal is never very loth to try upon the limping +specimens of his race. + +Henslowe stopped and turned as he heard the steps behind him. Six +months' self-murdering had left ghastly traces. He was many degrees +nearer the brute than he had been even when Robert made his ineffectual +visit. But at this actual moment Robert's practised eye--for every +English parish clergyman becomes dismally expert in the pathology of +drunkenness--saw that there was no fight in him. He was in one of the +drunkard's periods of collapse--shivering, flabby, starting at every +sound, a misery to himself and a spectacle to others. + +'Mr. Henslowe!' cried Robert, still pursuing him, 'may I speak to you a +moment?' + +The ex-agent turned, his prominent bloodshot eyes glowering at the +speaker. But he had to catch at his stick for support, or at the nervous +shock of Robert's summons his legs would have given way under him. + +Robert came up with him and stood a second, fronting the evil silence of +the other, his boyish face deeply flushed. Perhaps the grotesqueness of +that former scene was in his mind. Moreover, the vestry meetings had +furnished Henslowe with periodical opportunities for venting his gall on +the rector, and they had never been neglected. But he plunged on boldly. + +'I am going away next week, Mr. Henslowe; I shall be away some +considerable time. Before I go I should like to ask you whether you do +not think the feud between us had better cease. Why will you persist in +making an enemy of me? If I did you an injury it was neither wittingly +nor willingly. I know you have been ill and I gather that--that--you are +in trouble. If I could stand between you and further mischief I +would--most gladly. If help--or--or money----' He paused. He shrewdly +suspected, indeed, from the reports that reached him, that Henslowe was +on the brink of bankruptcy. + +The rector had spoken with the utmost diffidence and delicacy, but +Henslowe found energy in return for an outburst of quavering animosity, +from which, however, physical weakness had extracted all its sting. + +'I'll thank you to make your canting offers to some one else, Mr. +Elsmere. When I want your advice I'll ask it. Good day to you.' And he +turned away with as much of an attempt at dignity as his shaking limbs +would allow of. + +'Listen, Mr. Henslowe,' said Robert firmly, walking beside him; 'you +know--I know--that if this goes on, in a year's time you will be in your +grave, and your poor wife and children struggling to keep themselves +from the workhouse. You may think that I have no right to preach to +you--that you are the older man--that it is an intrusion. But what is +the good of blinking facts that you must know all the world knows? Come, +now, Mr. Henslowe, let us behave for a moment as though this were our +last meeting. Who knows? the chances of life are many. Lay down your +grudge against me, and let me speak to you as one struggling human being +to another. The fact that you have, as you say, become less prosperous, +in some sort through me, seems to give me a right--to make it a duty for +me, if you will--to help you if I can. Let me send a good doctor to see +you. Let me implore you as a last chance to put yourself into his +hands, and to obey him, and your wife; and let me,'--the rector +hesitated,--'let me make things pecuniarily easier for Mrs. Henslowe +till you have pulled yourself out of the hole in which, by common report +at least, you are now.' + +Henslowe stared at him, divided between anger caused by the sore +stirring of his old self-importance, and a tumultuous flood of +self-pity, roused irresistibly in him by Robert's piercing frankness, +and aided by his own more or less maudlin condition. The latter +sensation quickly undermined the former; he turned his back on the +rector and leant over the railings of the lane, shaken by something it +is hardly worth while to dignify by the name of emotion. Robert stood +by, a pale embodiment of mingled judgment and compassion. He gave the +man a few moments to recover himself, and then, as Henslowe turned round +again, he silently and appealingly held out his hand--the hand of the +good man, which it was an honour for such as Henslowe to touch. +Constrained by the moral force radiating from his look, the other took +it with a kind of helpless sullenness. + +Then, seizing at once on the slight concession, with that complete lack +of inconvenient self-consciousness, or hindering indecision, which was +one of the chief causes of his effect on men and women, Robert began to +sound the broken repulsive creature as to his affairs. Bit by bit, +compelled by a will and nervous strength far superior to his own, +Henslowe was led into abrupt and blurted confidences which surprised no +one so much as himself. Robert's quick sense possessed itself of point +after point, seeing presently ways of escape and relief which the +besotted brain beside him had been quite incapable of devising for +itself. They walked on into the open country, and what with the +discipline of the rector's presence, the sobering effect wrought by the +shock to pride and habit, and the unwonted brain exercise of the +conversation, the demon in Henslowe had been for the moment most +strangely tamed after half an hour's talk. Actually some reminiscences +of his old ways of speech and thought, the ways of the once prosperous +and self-reliant man of business, had reappeared in him before the end +of it, called out by the subtle influence of a manner which always +attracted to the surface whatever decent element there might be left in +a man, and then instantly gave it a recognition which was more redeeming +than either counsel or denunciation. + +By the time they parted Robert had arranged with his old enemy that he +should become his surety with a rich cousin in Churton, who, always +supposing there were no risk in the matter, and that benevolence ran on +all-fours with security of investment, was prepared to shield the credit +of the family by the advance of a sufficient sum of money to rescue the +ex-agent from his most pressing difficulties. He had also wrung from him +the promise to see a specialist in London--Robert writing that evening +to make the appointment. + +How had it been done? Neither Robert nor Henslowe ever quite knew. +Henslowe walked home in a bewilderment which for once had nothing to do +with brandy, but was simply the result of a moral shock acting on what +was still human in the man's debased consciousness, just as electricity +acts on the bodily frame. + +Robert, on the other hand, saw him depart with a singular lightening of +mood. What he seemed to have achieved might turn out to be the merest +moonshine. At any rate, the incident had appeased in him a kind of +spiritual hunger--the hunger to escape a while from that incessant +process of destructive analysis with which the mind was still beset, +into some use of energy, more positive, human, and beneficent. + +The following day was one long trial of endurance for Elsmere and for +Catherine. She pleaded to go, promising quietly to keep out of his +sight, and they started together--a miserable pair. + +Crowds, heat, decorations, the grandees on the platform, and conspicuous +among them the squire's slouching frame and striking head, side by side +with a white and radiant Lady Helen--the outer success, the inner revolt +and pain--and the constant seeking of his truant eyes for a face that +hid itself as much as possible in dark corners, but was in truth the one +thing sharply present to him--these were the sort of impressions that +remained with Elsmere afterwards of this last meeting with his people. + +He had made a speech, of which he never could remember a word. As he sat +down, there had been a slight flutter of surprise in the sympathetic +looks of those about him, as though the tone of it had been somewhat +unexpected and disproportionate to the occasion. Had he betrayed himself +in any way? He looked for Catherine, but she was nowhere to be seen. +Only in his search he caught the squire's ironical glance, and wondered +with quick shame what sort of nonsense he had been talking. + +Then a neighbouring clergyman, who had been his warm supporter and +admirer from the beginning, sprang up and made a rambling panegyric on +him and on his work, which Elsmere writhed under. His work! absurdity! +What could be done in two years? He saw it all as the merest nothing, a +ragged beginning which might do more harm than good. + +But the cheering was incessant, the popular feeling intense. There was +old Milsom waving a feeble arm: John Allwood gaunt, but radiant; Mary +Sharland, white still as the ribbons on her bonnet, egging on her +flushed and cheering husband; and the club boys grinning and shouting, +partly for love of Elsmere, mostly because to the young human animal +mere noise is heaven. In front was an old hedger and ditcher, who came +round the parish periodically, and never failed to take Elsmere's +opinion as to 'a bit of prapperty' he and two other brothers as ancient +as himself had been quarrelling over for twenty years, and were likely +to go on quarrelling over, till all three litigants had closed their +eyes on a mortal scene which had afforded them on the whole vast +entertainment, though little pelf. Next him was a bowed and twisted old +tramp who had been shepherd in the district in his youth, had then gone +through the Crimea and the Mutiny, and was now living about the commons, +welcome to feed here and sleep there for the sake of his stories and his +queer innocuous wit. Robert had had many a gay argumentative walk with +him, and he and his companion had tramped miles to see the function, to +rattle their sticks on the floor in Elsmere's honour, and satiate their +curious gaze on the squire. + +When all was over, Elsmere, with his wife on his arm, mounted the hill +to the rectory, leaving the green behind them still crowded with folk. +Once inside the shelter of their own trees, husband and wife turned +instinctively and caught each other's hands. A low groan broke from +Elsmere's lips; Catherine looked at him one moment, then fell weeping on +his breast. The first chapter of their common life was closed. + + * * * * * + +One thing more, however, of a private nature, remained for Elsmere to +do. Late in the afternoon he walked over to the Hall. + +He found the squire in the inner library, among his German books, his +pipe in his mouth, his old smoking coat and slippers bearing witness to +the rapidity and joy with which he had shut the world out again after +the futilities of the morning. His mood was more accessible than Elsmere +had yet found it since his return. + +'Well, have you done with all those tomfooleries, Elsmere? Precious +eloquent speech you made! When I see you and people like you throwing +yourselves at the heads of the people, I always think of Scaliger's +remark about the Basques: "They say they understand one another--_I +don't believe a word of it!_" All that the lower class _wants_ to +understand, at any rate, is the shortest way to the pockets of you and +me; all that you and I need understand, according to me, is how to keep +'em off! There you have the sum and substance of _my_ political +philosophy.' + +'You remind me,' said Robert drily, sitting down on one of the library +stools, 'of some of those sentiments you expressed so forcibly on the +first evening of our acquaintance.' + +The squire received the shaft with equanimity. + +'I was not amiable, I remember, on that occasion,' he said coolly, his +thin, old man's fingers moving the while among the shelves of books, +'nor on several subsequent ones. I had been made a fool of, and you were +not particularly adroit. But of course you won't acknowledge it. Who +ever yet got a parson to confess himself!' + +'Strangely enough, Mr. Wendover,' said Robert, fixing him with a pair +of deliberate feverish eyes, 'I am here at this moment for that very +purpose.' + +'Go on,' said the squire, turning, however, to meet the rector's look, +his gold spectacles falling forward over his long hooked nose, his +attitude one of sudden attention. 'Go on.' + +All his grievances against Elsmere returned to him. He stood +aggressively waiting. + +Robert paused a moment, and then said abruptly-- + +'Perhaps even you will agree, Mr. Wendover, that I had some reason for +sentiment this morning. Unless I read the lessons to-morrow, which is +possible, to-day has been my last public appearance as rector of this +parish!' + +The squire looked at him dumfoundered. + +'And your reasons?' he said, with quick imperativeness. + +Robert gave them. He admitted, as plainly and bluntly as he had done to +Grey, the squire's own part in the matter; but here a note of +antagonism, almost of defiance, crept even into his confession of wide +and illimitable defeat. He was there, so to speak, to hand over his +sword. But to the squire, his surrender had all the pride of victory. + +'Why should you give up your living?' asked the squire after several +minutes' complete silence. + +He too had sat down, and was now bending forward, his sharp small eyes +peering at his companion. + +'Simply because I prefer to feel myself an honest man. However, I have +not acted without advice. Grey of St. Anselm's--you know him of +course--was a very close personal friend of mine at Oxford. I have been +to see him, and we agreed it was the only thing to do.' + +'Oh, Grey,' exclaimed the squire, with a movement of impatience. 'Grey +of course wanted you to set up a church of your own, or to join his! He +is like all idealists, he has the usual foolish contempt for the +compromise of institutions.' + +'Not at all,' said Robert calmly, 'you are mistaken; he has the most +sacred respect for institutions. He only thinks it well, and I agree +with him, that with regard to a man's public profession and practice he +should recognise that two and two make four.' + +It was clear to him from the squire's tone and manner that Mr. +Wendover's instincts on the point were very much what he had expected, +the instincts of the philosophical man of the world, who scorns the +notion of taking popular beliefs seriously, whether for protest or for +sympathy. But he was too weary to argue. The squire, however, rose +hastily and began to walk up and down in a gathering storm of +irritation. The triumph gained for his own side, the tribute to his +life's work, were at the moment absolutely indifferent to him. They were +effaced by something else much harder to analyse. Whatever it was, it +drove him to throw himself upon Robert's position with a perverse +bewildering bitterness. + +'Why should you break up your life in this wanton way? Who, in God's +name, is injured if you keep your living? It is the business of the +thinker and the scholar to clear his mind of cobwebs. Granted. You have +done it. But it is also the business of the practical man to live! If I +had your altruist emotional temperament, I should not hesitate for a +moment. I should regard the historical expressions of an eternal +tendency in men as wholly indifferent to me. If I understand you aright, +you have flung away the sanctions of orthodoxy. There is no other in the +way. Treat words as they deserve. _You_'--and the speaker laid an +emphasis on the pronoun which for the life of him he could not help +making sarcastic--'_you_ will always have Gospel enough to preach.' + +'I cannot,' Robert repeated quietly, unmoved by the taunt, if it was +one. 'I am in a different stage, I imagine, from you. Words--that is to +say, the specific Christian formulae--may be indifferent to you, though a +month or two ago I should hardly have guessed it; they are just now +anything but indifferent to me.' + +The squire's brow grew darker. He took up the argument again, more +pugnaciously than ever. It was the strangest attempt ever made to gibe +and flout a wandering sheep back into the fold. Robert's resentment was +roused at last. The squire's temper seemed to him totally inexplicable, +his arguments contradictory, the conversation useless and irritating. He +got up to take his leave. + +'What you are about to do, Elsmere,' the squire wound up with saturnine +emphasis, 'is a piece of _cowardice_! You will live bitterly to regret +the haste and the unreason of it.' + +'There has been no haste,' exclaimed Robert in the low tone of +passionate emotion; 'I have not rooted up the most sacred growths of +life as a careless child devastates its garden. There are some things +which a man only does because he _must_.' + +There was a pause. Robert held out his hand. The squire would hardly +touch it. Outwardly his mood was one of the strangest eccentricity and +anger; and as to what was beneath it, Elsmere's quick divination was +dulled by worry and fatigue. It only served him so far that at the door +he turned back, hat in hand, and said, looking lingeringly the while at +the solitary sombre figure, at the great library, with all its +suggestive and exquisite detail: 'If Monday is fine, Squire, will you +walk?' + +The squire made no reply except by another question. + +'Do you still keep to your Swiss plans for next week?' he asked sharply. + +'Certainly. The plan, as it happens, is a Godsend. But there,' said +Robert, with a sigh, 'let me explain the details of this dismal business +to you on Monday. I have hardly the courage for it now.' + +The curtain dropped behind him. Mr. Wendover stood a minute looking +after him; then, with some vehement expletive or other, walked up to +his writing-table, drew some folios that were lying on it towards him, +with hasty maladroit movements which sent his papers flying over the +floor, and plunged doggedly into work. + + * * * * * + +He and Mrs. Darcy dined alone. After dinner the squire leant against the +mantelpiece sipping his coffee, more gloomily silent than even his +sister had seen him for weeks. And, as always happened when he became +more difficult and morose, she became more childish. She was now wholly +absorbed with a little electric toy she had just bought for Mary +Elsmere, a number of infinitesimal little figures dancing fantastically +under the stimulus of an electric current, generated by the simplest +means. She hung over it absorbed, calling to her brother every now and +then, as though by sheer perversity, to come and look whenever the pink +or the blue _danseuse_ executed a more surprising somersault than usual. + +He took not the smallest spoken notice of her, though his eyes followed +her contemptuously as she moved from window to window with her toy in +pursuit of the fading light. + +'Oh, Roger,' she called presently, still throwing herself to this side +and that, to catch new views of her pith puppets, 'I have got something +to show you. You must admire them--you shall! I have been drawing them +all day, and they are nearly done. You remember what I told you once +about my "imps"? I have seen them all my life, since I was a child in +France with papa, and I have never been able to draw them till the last +few weeks. They are such dears--such darlings; every one will know them +when he sees them! There is the Chinese imp, the low smirking creature, +you know, that sits on the edge of your cup of tea; there is the +flipperty-flopperty creature that flies out at you when you open a +drawer; there is the twisty-twirly person that sits jeering on the edge +of your hat when it blows away from you; and'--her voice dropped--'that +_ugly_, _ugly_ thing I always see waiting for me on the top of a gate. +They have teased me all my life, and now at _last_ I have drawn them. If +they were to take offence to-morrow I should have them--the +beauties--all safe.' + +She came towards him, her _bizarre_ little figure swaying from side to +side, her eyes glittering, her restless hands pulling at the lace round +her blanched head and face. The squire, his hands behind him, looked at +her frowning, an involuntary horror dawning on his dark countenance, +turned abruptly, and left the room. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Wendover worked till midnight; then, tired out, he turned to the bit +of fire to which, in spite of the oppressiveness of the weather, the +chilliness of age and nervous strain had led him to set a light. He sat +there for long, sunk in the blackest reverie. He was the only living +creature in the great library wing which spread around and above +him--the only waking creature in the whole vast pile of Murewell. The +silver lamps shone with a steady melancholy light on the chequered walls +of books. The silence was a silence that could be felt; and the gleaming +Artemis, the tortured frowning Medusa, were hardly stiller in their +frozen calm than the crouching figure of the squire. + +So Elsmere was going! In a few weeks the rectory would be once more +tenanted by one of those nonentities the squire had either patronised or +scorned all his life. The park, the lanes, the room in which he sits, +will know that spare young figure, that animated voice, no more. The +outlet which had brought so much relief and stimulus to his own mental +powers is closed; the friendship on which he had unconsciously come to +depend so much is broken before it had well begun. + +All sorts of strange thwarted instincts make themselves felt in the +squire. The wife he had once thought to marry, the children he might +have had, come to sit like ghosts with him beside the fire. He had +never, like Augustine, 'loved to love'; he had only loved to know. But +none of us escapes to the last the yearnings which make us men. The +squire becomes conscious that certain fibres he had thought long since +dead in him had been all the while twining themselves silently round the +disciple who had shown him in many respects such a filial consideration +and confidence. That young man might have become to him the son of his +old age, the one human being from whom, as weakness of mind and body +break him down, even his indomitable spirit might have accepted the +sweetness of human pity, the comfort of human help. + +And it is his own hand which has done most to break the nascent +slowly-forming tie. He has bereft himself. + +With what incredible recklessness had he been acting all these months! + +It was the _levity_ of his own proceeding which stared him in the face. +His rough hand had closed on the delicate wings of a soul as a boy +crushes the butterfly he pursues. As Elsmere had stood looking back at +him from the library door, the suffering which spoke in every line of +that changed face had stirred a sudden troubled remorse in Roger +Wendover. It was mere justice that one result of that suffering should +be to leave himself forlorn. + +He had been thinking and writing of religion, of the history of ideas, +all his life. Had he ever yet grasped the meaning of religion _to the +religious man_? _God_ and _faith_--what have these venerable ideas ever +mattered to him personally, except as the subjects of the most ingenious +analysis, the most delicate historical inductions? Not only sceptical to +the core, but constitutionally indifferent, the squire had always found +enough to make life amply worth living in the mere dissection of other +men's beliefs. + +But to-night! The unexpected shock of feeling, mingled with the terrible +sense, periodically alive in him, of physical doom, seems to have +stripped from the thorny soul its outer defences of mental habit. He +sees once more the hideous spectacle of his father's death, his own +black half-remembered moments of warning, the teasing horror of his +sister's increasing weakness of brain. Life has been on the whole a +burden, though there has been a certain joy no doubt in the fierce +intellectual struggle of it. And to-night it seems so nearly over! A +cold prescience of death creeps over the squire as he sits in the +lamplit silence. His eye seems to be actually penetrating the eternal +vastness which lies about our life. He feels himself old, feeble, alone. +The awe, the terror which are at the root of all religions have fallen +even upon him at last. + +The fire burns lower, the night wears on; outside, an airless, misty +moonlight lies over park and field. Hark! was that a sound upstairs, in +one of those silent empty rooms? + +The squire half rises, one hand on his chair, his blanched face +strained, listening. Again! Is it a footstep or simply a delusion of the +ear? He rises, pushes aside the curtains into the inner library, where +the lamps have almost burnt away, creeps up the wooden stair, and into +the deserted upper story. + +Why was that door into the end room--his father's room--open? He had +seen it closed that afternoon. No one had been there since. He stepped +nearer. Was that simply a gleam of moonlight on the polished +floor--confused lines of shadow thrown by the vine outside? And was that +sound nothing but the stirring of the rising wind of dawn against the +open casement window? Or---- + +'_My God!_' + +The squire fled downstairs. He gained his chair again. He sat upright an +instant, impressing on himself, with sardonic vindictive force, some of +those truisms as to the action of mind on body, of brain-process on +sensation, which it had been part of his life's work to illustrate. The +philosopher had time to realise a shuddering fellowship of weakness with +his kind, to see himself as a helpless instance of an inexorable law, +before he fell back in his chair; a swoon, born of pitiful human +terror--terror of things unseen--creeping over heart and brain. + + + + +BOOK V + +ROSE + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +It was a November afternoon. London lay wrapped in rainy fog. The +atmosphere was such as only a Londoner can breathe with equanimity, and +the gloom was indescribable. + +Meanwhile, in defiance of the Inferno outside, festal preparations were +being made in a little house on Campden Hill. Lamps were lit; in the +drawing-room chairs were pushed back; the piano was open, and a violin +stand towered beside it; chrysanthemums were everywhere; an invalid lady +in a 'best cap' occupied the sofa; and two girls were flitting about, +clearly making the last arrangements necessary for a 'musical +afternoon.' + +The invalid was Mrs. Leyburn, the girls, of course, Rose and Agnes. Rose +at last was safely settled in her longed-for London, and an artistic +company, of the sort her soul loved, was coming to tea with her. + +Of Rose's summer at Burwood very little need be said. She was conscious +that she had not borne it very well. She had been off-hand with Mrs. +Thornburgh, and had enjoyed one or two open skirmishes with Mrs. Seaton. +Her whole temper had been irritating and irritable--she was perfectly +aware of it. Towards her sick mother, indeed, she had controlled +herself; nor, for such a restless creature, had she made a bad nurse. +But Agnes had endured much, and found it all the harder because she was +so totally in the dark as to the whys and wherefores of her sister's +moods. + +Rose herself would have scornfully denied that any whys and +wherefores--beyond her rooted dislike of Whindale--existed. Since her +return from Berlin, and especially since that moment when, as she was +certain, Mr. Langham had avoided her and Catherine at the National +Gallery, she had been calmly certain of her own heart-wholeness. Berlin +had developed her precisely as she had desired that it might. The +necessities of the Bohemian student's life had trained her to a new +independence and shrewdness, and in her own opinion she was now a woman +of the world judging all things by pure reasons. + +Oh, of course, she understood him perfectly. In the first place, at the +time of their first meeting she had been a mere bread-and-butter miss, +the easiest of preys for any one who might wish to get a few hours' +amusement and distraction out of her temper and caprices. In the next +place, even supposing he had been ever inclined to fall in love with +her, which her new sardonic fairness of mind obliged her to regard as +entirely doubtful, he was a man to whom marriage was impossible. How +could any one expect such a superfine dreamer to turn bread-winner for a +wife and household? Imagine Mr. Langham interviewed by a rate-collector +or troubled about coals! As to her--simply--she had misunderstood the +laws of the game. It was a little bitter to have to confess it; a little +bitter that he should have seen it, and have felt reluctantly compelled +to recall the facts to her. But, after all, most girls have some young +follies to blush over. + +So far the little cynic would get, becoming rather more scarlet, +however, over the process of reflection than was quite compatible with +the ostentatious worldly wisdom of it. Then a sudden inward restlessness +would break through, and she would spend a passionate hour pacing up and +down, and hungering for the moment when she might avenge upon herself +and him the week of silly friendship he had found it necessary as her +elder and monitor to cut short! + +In September came the news of Robert's resignation of his living. Mother +and daughters sat looking at each other over the letter, stupefied. That +this calamity, of all others, should have fallen on Catherine, of all +women! Rose said very little, and presently jumped up with shining +excited eyes, and ran out for a walk with Bob, leaving Agnes to console +their tearful and agitated mother. When she came in she went singing +about the house as usual. Agnes, who was moved by the news out of all +her ordinary _sangfroid_, was outraged by what seemed to her Rose's +callousness. _She_ wrote a letter to Catherine, which Catherine put +among her treasures, so strangely unlike it was to the quiet indifferent +Agnes of every day. Rose spent a morning over an attempt at a letter, +which when it reached its destination only wounded Catherine by its +constraint and convention. + +And yet that same night when the child was alone, suddenly some phrase +of Catherine's letter recurred to her. She _saw_, as only imaginative +people see, with every detail visualised, her sister's suffering, her +sister's struggle that was to be. She jumped into bed, and, stifling all +sounds under the clothes, cried herself to sleep, which did not prevent +her next morning from harbouring somewhere at the bottom of her, a +wicked and furtive satisfaction that Catherine might now learn there +were more opinions in the world than one. + +As for the rest of the valley, Mrs. Leyburn soon passed from bewailing +to a plaintive indignation with Robert, which was a relief to her +daughters. It seemed to her a reflection on 'Richard' that Robert should +have behaved so. Church opinions had been good enough for 'Richard.' +'The young men seem to think, my dears, their fathers were all fools!' + +The vicar, good man, was sincerely distressed, but sincerely confident, +also, that in time Elsmere would find his way back into the fold. In +Mrs. Thornburgh's dismay there was a secret superstitious pang. Perhaps +she had better not have meddled. Perhaps it was never well to meddle. +One event bears many readings, and the tragedy of Catherine Elsmere's +life took shape in the uneasy consciousness of the vicar's spouse as a +more or less sharp admonition against wilfulness in match-making. + +Of course Rose had her way as to wintering in London. They came up in +the middle of October while the Elsmeres were still abroad, and settled +into a small house in Lerwick Gardens, Campden Hill, which Catherine had +secured for them on her way through town to the Continent. + +As soon as Mrs. Leyburn had been made comfortable, Rose set to work to +look up her friends. She owed her acquaintance in London hitherto mainly +to Mr. and Mrs. Pierson, the young barrister and his aesthetic wife whom +she had originally met and made friends with in a railway-carriage. Mr. +Pierson was bustling and shrewd; not made of the finest clay, yet not at +all a bad fellow. His wife, the daughter of a famous Mrs. Leo Hunter of +a bygone generation, was small, untidy, and in all matters of religious +or political opinion 'emancipated' to an extreme. She had also a strong +vein of inherited social ambition, and she and her husband welcomed Rose +with greater effusion than ever, in proportion as she was more beautiful +and more indisputably gifted than ever. They placed themselves and their +house at the girl's service, partly out of genuine admiration and +good-nature, partly also because they divined in her a profitable social +appendage. + +For the Piersons, socially, were still climbing, and had by no means +attained. Their world, so far, consisted too much of the odds and ends +of most other worlds. They were not satisfied with it, and the +friendship of the girl-violinist, whose vivacious beauty and artistic +gift made a stir wherever she went, was a very welcome addition to their +resources. They feted her in their own house; they took her to the +houses of other people; society smiled on Miss Leyburn's protectors more +than it had ever smiled on Mr. and Mrs. Pierson taken alone; and +meanwhile Rose, flushed, excited, and totally unsuspicious, thought the +world a fairy tale, and lived from morning till night in a perpetual din +of music, compliments, and bravos, which seemed to her life indeed--life +at last! + +With the beginning of November the Elsmeres returned, and about the same +time Rose began to project tea-parties of her own, to which Mrs. Leyburn +gave a flurried assent. When the invitations were written, Rose sat +staring at them a little, pen in hand. + +'I wonder what Catherine will say to some of these people!' she +remarked in a dubious voice to Agnes. 'Some of them are queer, I admit; +but, after all, those two superior persons will have to get used to my +friends some time, and they may as well begin.' + +'You cannot expect poor Cathie to come,' said Agnes with sudden energy. + +Rose's eyebrows went up. Agnes resented her ironical expression, and +with a word or two of quite unusual sharpness got up and went. + +Rose, left alone, sprang up suddenly, and clasped her white fingers +above her head, with a long breath. + +'Where my heart used to be there is now just--a black--cold--cinder,' +she remarked with sarcastic emphasis. 'I am sure I used to be a nice +girl once, but it is so long ago I can't remember it!' + +She stayed so a minute or more; then two tears suddenly broke and fell. +She dashed them angrily away, and sat down again to her note-writing. + +Amongst the cards she had still to fill up was one of which the envelope +was addressed to the Hon. Hugh Flaxman, 90 St. James's Place. Lady +Charlotte, though she had afterwards again left town, had been in Martin +Street at the end of October. The Leyburns had lunched there, and had +been introduced by her to her nephew, and Lady Helen's brother, Mr. +Flaxman. The girls had found him agreeable; he had called the week +afterwards when they were not at home; and Rose now carelessly sent him +a card, with the inward reflection that he was much too great a man to +come, and was probably enjoying himself at country houses, as every +aristocrat should, in November. + +The following day the two girls made their way over to Bedford Square, +where the Elsmeres had taken a house in order to be near the British +Museum. They pushed their way upstairs through a medley of +packing-cases, and a sickening smell of paint. There was a sound of an +opening door, and a gentleman stepped out of the back room, which was to +be Elsmere's study, on to the landing. + +It was Edward Langham. He and Rose stood and stared at each other a +moment. Then Rose in the coolest, lightest voice introduced him to +Agnes. Agnes, with one curious glance, took in her sister's defiant +smiling ease and the stranger's embarrassment; then she went on to find +Catherine. The two left behind exchanged a few _banal_ questions and +answers. Langham had only allowed himself one look at the dazzling face +and eyes framed in fur cap and boa. Afterwards he stood making a study +of the ground, and answering her remarks in his usual stumbling fashion. +What was it had gone out of her voice--simply the soft callow sounds of +first youth? And what a personage she had grown in these twelve +months--how formidably, consciously brilliant in look and dress and +manner! + +Yes, he was still in town--settled there, indeed, for some time. And +she--was there any special day on which Mrs. Leyburn received visitors? +He asked the question, of course, with various hesitations and +circumlocutions. + +'Oh dear, yes! Will you come next Wednesday, for instance, and inspect a +musical menagerie? The animals will go through their performances from +four till seven. And I can answer for it that some of the specimens will +be entirely new to you.' + +The prospect offered could hardly have been more repellent to him, but +he got out an acceptance somehow. She nodded lightly to him and passed +on, and he went downstairs, his head in a whirl. Where had the crude +pretty child of yester-year departed to--impulsive, conceited, readily +offended, easily touched, sensitive as to what all the world might think +of her and her performances? The girl he had just left had counted all +her resources, tried the edge of all her weapons, and knew her own place +too well to ask for anybody else's appraisement. What beauty--good +heavens!--what _aplomb_! The rich husband Elsmere talked of would hardly +take much waiting for. + +So cogitating, Langham took his way westward to his Beaumont Street +rooms. They were on the second floor, small, dingy, choked with books. +Ordinarily he shut the door behind him with a sigh of content. This +evening they seemed to him intolerably confined and stuffy. He thought +of going out to his club and a concert, but did nothing, after all, but +sit brooding over the fire till midnight, alternately hugging and hating +his solitude. + + * * * * * + +And so we return to the Wednesday following this unexpected meeting. + +The drawing-room at No. 27 was beginning to fill. Rose stood at the door +receiving the guests as they flowed in, while Agnes in the background +dispensed tea. She was discussing with herself the probability of +Langham's appearance. 'Whom shall I introduce him to first?' she +pondered, while she shook hands. 'The poet? I see mamma is now +struggling with him. The 'cellist with the hair--or the lady in Greek +dress--or the esoteric Buddhist? What a fascinating selection! I had +really no notion we should be quite so curious!' + +'Mees Rose, they vait for you,' said a charming golden-bearded young +German, viola in hand, bowing before her. He and his kind were most of +them in love with her already, and all the more so because she knew so +well how to keep them at a distance. + +She went off, beckoning to Agnes to take her place, and the quartette +began. The young German aforesaid played the viola, while the 'cello was +divinely played by a Hungarian, of whose outer man it need only be said +that in wild profusion of much-tortured hair, in Hebraism of feature, +and swarthy smoothness of cheek, he belonged to that type which Nature +would seem to have already used to excess in the production of the +continental musician. Rose herself was violinist, and the instruments +dashed into the opening allegro with a precision and an _entrain_ that +took the room by storm. + +In the middle of it, Langham pushed his way into the crowd round the +drawing-room door. Through the heads about him, he could see her +standing a little in advance of the others, her head turned to one side, +really in the natural attitude of violin-playing, but, as it seemed to +him, in a kind of ravishment of listening--cheeks flushed, eyes shining, +and the right arm and high-curved wrist managing the bow with a grace +born of knowledge and fine training. + +'Very much improved, eh?' said an English professional to a German +neighbour, lifting his eyebrows interrogatively. + +The other nodded with the business-like air of one who knows. 'Joachim, +they say, _war darueber entzueckt_, and did his best vid her, and now +D---- has got her'--naming a famous violinist--'she vill make fast +brogress. He vill schtamp upon her treecks!' + +'But will she ever be more than a very clever amateur? Too pretty, eh?' +And the questioner nudged his companion, dropping his voice. + +Langham would have given worlds to get on into the room, over the +prostrate body of the speaker by preference, but the laws of mass and +weight had him at their mercy, and he was rooted to the spot. + +The other shrugged his shoulders. 'Vell, vid a bretty +woman--_ueberhaupt_--it _dosn't_ mean business! It's zoziety--the dukes +and the duchesses--that ruins all the yong talents.' + +This whispered conversation went on during the andante. With the scherzo +the two hirsute faces broke into broad smiles. The artist behind each +woke up, and Langham heard no more, except guttural sounds of delight +and quick notes of technical criticism. + +How that Scherzo danced and coquetted, and how the Presto flew as though +all the winds were behind it, chasing its mad eddies of notes through +listening space! At the end, amid a wild storm of applause, she laid +down her violin, and, proudly smiling, her breast still heaving with +excitement and exertion, received the praises of those crowding round +her. The group round the door was precipitated forward, and Langham with +it. She saw him in a moment. Her white brow contracted, and she gave him +a quick but hardly smiling glance of recognition through the crowd. He +thought there was no chance of getting at her, and moved aside amid the +general hubbub to look at a picture. + +'Mr. Langham, how do you do?' + +He turned sharply and found her beside him. She had come to him with +malice in her heart--malice born of smart and long smouldering pain; but +as she caught his look, the look of the nervous short-sighted scholar +and recluse, as her glance swept over the delicate refinement of the +face, a sudden softness quivered in her own. The game was so +defenceless! + +'You will find nobody here you know,' she said abruptly, a little under +her breath. 'I am morally certain you never saw a single person in the +room before! Shall I introduce you?' + +'Delighted, of course. But don't disturb yourself about me, Miss +Leyburn. I come out of my hole so seldom, everything amuses me--but +especially looking and listening.' + +'Which means,' she said, with frank audacity, 'that you dislike new +people!' + +His eye kindled at once. 'Say rather that it means a preference for the +people that are not new! There is such a thing as concentrating one's +attention. I came to hear you play, Miss Leyburn!' + +'Well?' + +She glanced at him from under her long lashes, one hand playing with the +rings on the other. He thought, suddenly, with a sting of regret, of the +confiding child who had flushed under his praise that Sunday evening at +Murewell. + +'Superb!' he said, but half-mechanically. 'I had no notion a winter's +work would have done so much for you. Was Berlin as stimulating as you +expected? When I heard you had gone, I said to myself--"Well, at least, +now, there is one completely happy person in Europe!"' + +'Did you? How easily we all dogmatise about each other?' she said +scornfully. Her manner was by no means simple. He did not feel himself +at all at ease with her. His very embarrassment, however, drove him into +rashness, as often happens. + +'I thought I had enough to go upon!' he said in another tone; and his +black eyes, sparkling as though a film had dropped from them, supplied +the reference his words forbore. + +She turned away from him with a perceptible drawing up of the whole +figure. + +'Will you come and be introduced?' she asked him coldly. He bowed as +coldly and followed her. Wholesome resentment of her manner was denied +him. He _had_ asked for her friendship, and had then gone away and +forgotten her. Clearly what she meant him to see now was that they were +strangers again. Well, she was amply in her right. He suspected that his +allusion to their first talk over the fire had not been unwelcome to +her, as an opportunity. + +And he had actually debated whether he should come, lest in spite of +himself she might beguile him once more into those old lapses of will +and common sense! Coxcomb! + +He made a few spasmodic efforts at conversation with the lady to whom +she had introduced him, then awkwardly disengaged himself and went to +stand in a corner and study his neighbours. + +Close to him, he found, was the poet of the party, got up in the most +correct professional costume--long hair, velvet coat, eyeglass and all. +His extravagance, however, was of the most conventional type. Only his +vanity had a touch of the sublime. Langham, who possessed a sort of +fine-ear gift for catching conversation, heard him saying to an +open-eyed _ingenue_ beside him,-- + +'Oh, my literary baggage is small as yet. I have only done, perhaps, +three things that will live.' + +'Oh, Mr. Wood!' said the maiden, mildly protesting against so much +modesty. + +He smiled, thrusting his hand into the breast of the velvet coat. 'But +then,' he said, in a tone of the purest candour, 'at my age I don't +think Shelley had done more!' + +Langham, who, like all shy men, was liable to occasional explosions, was +seized with a convulsive fit of coughing, and had to retire from the +neighbourhood of the bard, who looked round him, disturbed and slightly +frowning. + +At last he discovered a point of view in the back room whence he could +watch the humours of the crowd without coming too closely in contact +with them. What a miscellaneous collection it was! He began to be +irritably jealous for Rose's place in the world. She ought to be more +adequately surrounded than this. What was Mrs. Leyburn--what were the +Elsmeres about? He rebelled against the thought of her living +perpetually among her inferiors, the centre of a vulgar publicity, queen +of the second-rate. + +It provoked him that she should be amusing herself so well. Her +laughter, every now and then, came ringing into the back room. And +presently there was a general hubbub. Langham craned his neck forward, +and saw a struggle going on over a roll of music, between Rose and the +long-haired, long-nosed violoncellist. Evidently she did not want to +play some particular piece, and wished to put it out of sight. Whereupon +the Hungarian, who had been clamouring for it, rushed to its rescue, and +there was a mock fight over it. At last, amid the applause of the room, +Rose was beaten, and her conqueror, flourishing the music on high, +executed a kind of _pas seul_ of triumph. + +'_Victoria!_' he cried. 'Now denn for de conditions of peace. Mees Rose, +vill you kindly tune up? You are as moch beaten as the French at Sedan.' + +'Not a stone of my fortresses, not an inch of my territory!' said Rose, +with fine emphasis, crossing her white wrists before her. + +The Hungarian looked at her, the wild poetic strain in him which was the +strain of race asserting itself. + +'But if de victor bows,' he said, dropping on one knee before her. 'If +force lay down his spoils at de feet of beauty?' + +The circle round them applauded hotly, the touch of theatricality +finding immediate response. Langham was remorselessly conscious of the +man's absurd _chevelure_ and ill-fitting clothes. But Rose herself had +evidently nothing but relish for the scene. Proudly smiling, she held +out her hand for her property, and as soon as she had it safe, she +whisked it into the open drawer of a cabinet standing near, and drawing +out the key, held it up a moment in her taper fingers, and then, +depositing it in a little velvet bag hanging at her girdle, she closed +the snap upon it with a little vindictive wave of triumph. Every +movement was graceful, rapid, effective. + +Half a dozen German throats broke into guttural protest. Amid the storm +of laughter and remonstrance, the door suddenly opened. The fluttered +parlour-maid mumbled a long name, and, with a port of soldierly +uprightness, there advanced behind her a large fair-haired woman, +followed by a gentleman, and in the distance by another figure. + +Rose drew back a moment astounded, one hand on the piano, her dress +sweeping round her. An awkward silence fell on the chattering circle of +musicians. + +'Good heavens!' said Langham to himself, 'Lady Charlotte Wynnstay!' + +'How do you do, Miss Leyburn?' said one of the most piercing of voices. +'Are you surprised to see me? You didn't ask me--perhaps you don't want +me. But I have come, you see, partly because my nephew was coming,' and +she pointed to the gentleman behind her, 'partly because I meant to +punish you for not having come to see me last Thursday. Why didn't you?' + +'Because we thought you were still away,' said Rose, who had by this +time recovered her self-possession. 'But if you meant to punish me, Lady +Charlotte, you have done it badly. I am delighted to see you. May I +introduce my sister? Agnes, will you find Lady Charlotte Wynnstay a +chair by mamma?' + +'Oh, you wish, I see, to dispose of me at once,' said the other +imperturbably. 'What is happening? Is it music?' + +'Aunt Charlotte, that is most disingenuous on your part. I gave you +ample warning.' + +Rose turned a smiling face towards the speaker. It was Mr. Flaxman, Lady +Charlotte's companion. + +'You need not have drawn the picture too black, Mr. Flaxman. There is an +escape. If Lady Charlotte will only let my sister take her into the next +room, she will find herself well out of the clutches of the music. Oh, +Robert! Here you are at last! Lady Charlotte, you remember my +brother-in-law? Robert, will you get Lady Charlotte some tea?' + +'_I_ am not going to be banished,' said Mr. Flaxman, looking down upon +her, his well-bred, slightly worn face aglow with animation and +pleasure. + +'Then you will be deafened,' said Rose, laughing, as she escaped from +him a moment, to arrange for a song from a tall formidable maiden, built +after the fashion of Mr. Gilbert's contralto heroines, with a voice +which bore out the ample promise of her frame. + +'Your sister is a terribly self-possessed young person, Mr. Elsmere,' +said Lady Charlotte, as Robert piloted her across the room. + +'Does that imply praise or blame on your part, Lady Charlotte?' asked +Robert, smiling. + +'Neither at present. I don't know Miss Leyburn well enough. I merely +state a fact. No tea, Mr. Elsmere. I have had three teas already, and I +am not like the American woman who could always worry down another cup.' + +She was introduced to Mrs. Leyburn; but the plaintive invalid was +immediately seized with terror of her voice and appearance, and was +infinitely grateful to Robert for removing her as promptly as possible +to a chair on the border of the two rooms where she could talk or listen +as she pleased. For a few moments she listened to Frauelein Adelmann's +veiled unmanageable contralto; then she turned magisterially to Robert +standing behind her. + +'The art of singing has gone out.' she declared, 'since the Germans have +been allowed to meddle in it. By the way, Mr. Elsmere, how do you manage +to be here? Are you taking a holiday?' + +Robert looked at her with a start. + +'I have left Murewell, Lady Charlotte.' + +'Left Murewell!' she said in astonishment, turning round to look at him, +her eyeglass in her eye. 'Why has Helen told me nothing about it? Have +you got another living?' + +'No. My wife and I are settling in London. We only told Lady Helen of +our intentions a few weeks ago.' + +To which it may be added that Lady Helen, touched and dismayed by +Elsmere's letter to her, had not been very eager to hand over the woes +of her friends to her aunt's cool and irresponsible comments. + +Lady Charlotte deliberately looked at him a minute longer through her +glass. Then she let it fall. + +'You don't mean to tell me any more, I can see, Mr. Elsmere. But you +will allow me to be astonished?' + +'Certainly,' he said, smiling sadly, and immediately afterwards +relapsing into silence. + +'Have you heard of the squire lately?' he asked her after a pause. + +'Not from him. We are excellent friends when we meet, but he doesn't +consider me worth writing to. His sister--little idiot--writes to me +every now and then. But she has not vouchsafed me a letter since the +summer. I should say from the last accounts that he was breaking.' + +'He had a mysterious attack of illness just before I left,' said Robert +gravely. 'It made one anxious.' + +'Oh, it is the old story. All the Wendovers have died of weak hearts or +queer brains--generally of both together. I imagine you had some +experience of the squire's queerness at one time, Mr. Elsmere. I can't +say you and he seemed to be on particularly good terms on the only +occasion I ever had the pleasure of meeting you at Murewell.' + +She looked up at him, smiling grimly. She had a curiously exact memory +for the unpleasant scenes of life. + +'Oh, you remember that unlucky evening!' said Robert, reddening a +little. 'We soon got over that. We became great friends.' + +Again, however, Lady Charlotte was struck by the quiet melancholy of his +tone. How strangely the look of youth--which had been so attractive in +him the year before--had ebbed from the man's face--from complexion, +eyes, expression! She stared at him, full of a brusque tormenting +curiosity as to the how and why. + +'I hope there is some one among you strong enough to manage Miss Rose,' +she said presently, with an abrupt change of subject. 'That little +sister-in-law of yours is going to be the rage.' + +'Heaven forbid!' cried Robert fervently. + +'Heaven will do nothing of the kind. She is twice as pretty as she was +last year; I am told she plays twice as well. She had always the sort of +manner that provoked people one moment and charmed them the next. And, +to judge by my few words with her just now, I should say she had +developed it finely. Well, now, Mr. Elsmere, who is going to take care +of her?' + +'I suppose we shall all have a try at it, Lady Charlotte.' + +'Her mother doesn't look to me a person of nerve enough,' said Lady +Charlotte coolly. 'She is a girl certain--absolutely certain--to have +adventures, and you may as well be prepared for them.' + +'I can only trust she will disappoint your expectations, Lady +Charlotte,' said Robert, with a slightly sarcastic emphasis. + + * * * * * + +'Elsmere, who is that man talking to Miss Leyburn?' asked Langham as the +two friends stood side by side, a little later, watching the spectacle. + +'A certain Mr. Flaxman, brother to a pretty little neighbour of ours in +Surrey--Lady Helen Varley--and nephew to Lady Charlotte. I have not seen +him here before; but I think the girls like him.' + +'Is he the Flaxman who got the mathematical prize at Berlin last year?' + +'Yes, I believe so. A striking person altogether. He is enormously rich, +Lady Helen tells me, in spite of an elder brother. All the money in his +mother's family has come to him, and he is the heir to Lord Daniel's +great Derbyshire property. Twelve years ago I used to hear him talked +about incessantly by the Cambridge men one met. "Citizen Flaxman" they +called him, for his opinions' sake. He would ask his scout to dinner, +and insist on dining with his own servants, and shaking hands with his +friends' butlers. The scouts and the butlers put an end to that, and +altogether, I imagine, the world disappointed him. He has a story, poor +fellow, too--a young wife, who died with her first baby ten years ago. +The world supposes him never to have got over it, which makes him all +the more interesting. A distinguished face, don't you think?--the good +type of English aristocrat.' + +Langham assented. But his attention was fixed on the group in which +Rose's bright hair was conspicuous; and when Robert left him and went to +amuse Mrs. Leyburn, he still stood rooted to the same spot watching. +Rose was leaning against the piano, one hand behind her, her whole +attitude full of a young, easy, self-confident grace. Mr. Flaxman was +standing beside her, and they were deep in talk--serious talk +apparently, to judge by her quiet manner and the charmed attentive +interest of his look. Occasionally, however, there was a sally on her +part, and an answering flash of laughter on his; but the stream of +conversation closed immediately over the interruption, and flowed on as +evenly as before. + +Unconsciously Langham retreated farther and farther into the comparative +darkness of the inner room. He felt himself singularly insignificant and +out of place, and he made no more efforts to talk. Rose played a violin +solo, and played it with astonishing delicacy and fire. When it was over +Langham saw her turn from the applauding circle crowding in upon her and +throw a smiling interrogative look over her shoulder at Mr. Flaxman. Mr. +Flaxman bent over her, and as he spoke Langham caught her flush, and the +excited sparkle of her eyes. Was this the 'some one in the stream'? No +doubt!--no doubt! + +When the party broke up Langham found himself borne towards the outer +room, and before he knew where he was going he was standing beside her. + +'Are _you_ here still?' she said to him, startled, as he held out his +hand. He replied by some comments on the music, a little lumbering and +infelicitous, as all his small-talk was. She hardly listened, but +presently she looked up nervously, compelled as it were by the great +melancholy eyes above her. + +'We are not always in this turmoil, Mr. Langham. Perhaps some other day +you will come and make friends with my mother?' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Naturally, it was during their two months of autumn travel that Elsmere +and Catherine first realised in detail what Elsmere's act was to mean to +them, as husband and wife, in the future. Each left England with the +most tender and heroic resolves. And no one who knows anything of life +will need to be told that even for these two finely-natured people such +resolves were infinitely easier to make than to carry out. + +'I will not preach to you--I will not persecute you!' Catherine had said +to her husband at the moment of her first shock and anguish. And she did +her utmost, poor thing, to keep her word! All through the innumerable +bitternesses which accompanied Elsmere's withdrawal from Murewell--the +letters which followed them, the remonstrances of public and private +friends, the paragraphs which found their way, do what they would, into +the newspapers--the pain of deserting, as it seemed to her, certain poor +and helpless folk who had been taught to look to her and Robert, and +whose bewildered lamentations came to them through young +Armitstead--through all this she held her peace; she did her best to +soften Robert's grief; she never once reproached him with her own. + +But at the same time the inevitable separation of their inmost hopes and +beliefs had thrown her back on herself, had immensely strengthened that +puritan independent fibre in her which her youth had developed, and +which her happy marriage had only temporarily masked, not weakened. +Never had Catherine believed so strongly and intensely as now, when the +husband, who had been the guide and inspirer of her religious life, had +given up the old faith and practices. By virtue of a kind of nervous +instinctive dread, his relaxations bred increased rigidity in her. Often +when she was alone--or at night--she was seized with a lonely, an awful +sense of responsibility. Oh! let her guard her faith, not only for her +own sake, her child's, her Lord's, but for _his_--that it might be given +to her patience at last to lead him back. + +And the only way in which it seemed to her possible to guard it was to +set up certain barriers of silence. She feared that fiery persuasive +quality in Robert she had so often seen at work on other people. With +him conviction was life--it was the man himself, to an extraordinary +degree. How was she to resist the pressure of those new ardours with +which his mind was filling--she who loved him!--except by building, at +any rate for the time, an enclosure of silence round her Christian +beliefs? It was in some ways a pathetic repetition of the situation +between Robert and the squire in the early days of their friendship, but +in Catherine's mind there was no troubling presence of new knowledge +conspiring from within with the forces without. At this moment of her +life she was more passionately convinced than ever that the only +knowledge truly worth having in this world was the knowledge of God's +mercies in Christ. + +So gradually with a gentle persistency she withdrew certain parts of +herself from Robert's ken; she avoided certain subjects, or anything +that might lead to them; she ignored the religious and philosophical +books he was constantly reading; she prayed and thought alone--always +for him, of him--but still resolutely alone. It was impossible, however, +that so great a change in their life could be effected without a +perpetual sense of breaking links, a perpetual series of dumb wounds and +griefs on both sides. There came a moment when, as he sat alone one +evening in a pine wood above the Lake of Geneva, Elsmere suddenly awoke +to the conviction that in spite of all his efforts and illusions, their +relation to each other _was_ altering, dwindling, impoverishing; the +terror of that summer night at Murewell was being dismally justified. + +His own mind during this time was in a state of perpetual discovery, +'sailing the seas where there was never sand'--the vast shadowy seas of +speculative thought. All his life, reserve to those nearest to him had +been pain and grief to him. He was one of those people, as we know, who +throw off readily; to whom sympathy, expansion, are indispensable; who +suffer physically and mentally from anything cold and rigid beside them. +And now, at every turn, in their talk, their reading, in many of the +smallest details of their common existence, Elsmere began to feel the +presence of this cold and rigid something. He was ever conscious of +self-defence on her side, of pained drawing back on his. And with every +succeeding effort of his at self-repression, it seemed to him as though +fresh nails were driven into the coffin of that old free habit of +perfect confidence which had made the heaven of their life since they +had been man and wife. + +He sat on for long, through the September evening, pondering, wrestling. +Was it simply inevitable, the natural result of his own act, and of her +antecedents, to which he must submit himself, as to any mutilation or +loss of power in the body? The young lover and husband rebelled--the +believer rebelled--against the admission. Probably if his change had +left him anchorless and forsaken, as it leaves many men, he would have +been ready enough to submit, in terror lest his own forlornness should +bring about hers. But in spite of the intellectual confusion, which +inevitably attends any wholesale reconstruction of a man's platform of +action, he had never been more sure of God, or the Divine aims of the +world, than now; never more open than now, amid this exquisite Alpine +world, to those passionate moments of religious trust which are man's +eternal defiance to the iron silences about him. Originally, as we know, +he had shrunk from the thought of change in her corresponding to his +own; now that his own foothold was strengthening, his longing for a new +union was overpowering that old dread. The proselytising instinct may be +never quite morally defensible, even as between husband and wife. +Nevertheless, in all strong, convinced, and ardent souls it exists, and +must be reckoned with. + +At last one evening he was overcome by a sudden impulse which +neutralised for the moment his nervous dread of hurting her. Some little +incident of their day together was rankling, and it was borne in upon +him that almost any violent protest on her part would have been +preferable to this constant soft evasion of hers, which was gradually, +imperceptibly dividing heart from heart. + +They were in a bare attic room at the very top of one of the huge +newly-built hotels which during the last twenty years have invaded all +the high places of Switzerland. The August which had been so hot in +England had been rainy and broken in Switzerland. But it had been +followed by a warm and mellow September, and the favourite hotels below +a certain height were still full. When the Elsmeres arrived at Les +Avants, this scantily furnished garret, out of which some servants had +been hurried to make room for them, was all that could be found. They, +however, liked it for its space and its view. They looked sideways from +their windows on to the upper end of the lake, three thousand feet below +them. Opposite, across the blue water, rose a grandiose rampart of +mountains, the stage on which from morn till night the sun went through +a long transformation scene of beauty. The water was marked every now +and then by passing boats and steamers--tiny specks which served to +measure the vastness of all around them. To right and left, spurs of +green mountains shut out alike the lower lake and the icy splendours of +the 'Valais depths profound.' What made the charm of the narrow prospect +was, first, the sense it produced in the spectator of hanging dizzily +above the lake, with infinite air below him, and, then, the magical +effects of dawn and evening, when wreaths of mist would blot out the +valley and the lake, and leave the eye of the watcher face to face +across the fathomless abyss with the majestic mountain mass, and its +attendant retinue of clouds, as though they and he were alone in the +universe. + +It was a peaceful September night. From the open window beside him +Robert could see a world of high moonlight, limited and invaded on all +sides by sharp black masses of shade. A few rare lights glimmered on the +spreading alp below, and every now and then a breath of music came to +them wafted from a military band playing a mile or two away. They had +been climbing most of the afternoon, and Catherine was lying down, her +brown hair loose about her, the thin oval of her face and clear line of +brow just visible in the dim candlelight. + +Suddenly he stretched out his hand for his Greek Testament, which was +always near him, though there had been no common reading since that +bitter day of his confession to her. The mark still lay in the well-worn +volume at the point reached in their last reading at Murewell. He opened +upon it, and began the eleventh chapter of St. John. + +Catherine trembled when she saw him take up the book. He began without +preface, treating the passage before him in his usual way,--that is to +say, taking verse after verse in the Greek, translating and commenting. +She never spoke all through, and at last he closed the little Testament, +and bent towards her, his look full of feeling. + +'Catherine! can't you let me--will you never let me tell you, now, how +that story--how the old things--affect me, from the new point of view? +You always stop me when I try. I believe you think of me as having +thrown it all away. Would it not comfort you sometimes, if you knew that +although much of the Gospels, this very raising of Lazarus, for +instance, seem to me no longer true in the historical sense, still they +are always full to me of an ideal, a poetical truth? Lazarus may not +have died and come to life, may never have existed; but still to me, now +as always, love for Jesus of Nazareth is "resurrection" and "life"?' + +He spoke with the most painful diffidence, the most wistful tenderness. + +There was a pause. Then Catherine said, in a rigid constrained voice,-- + +'If the Gospels are not true in fact, as history, as reality, I cannot +see how they are true at all, or of any value.' + +The next minute she rose, and, going to the little wooden +dressing-table, she began to brush out and plait for the night her +straight silky veil of hair. As she passed him Robert saw her face pale +and set. + +He sat quiet another moment or two, and then he went towards her and +took her in his arms. + +'Catherine,' he said to her, his lips trembling, 'am I never to speak my +mind to you any more? Do you mean always to hold me at arm's length--to +refuse always to hear what I have to say in defence of the change which +has cost us both so much?' + +She hesitated, trying hard to restrain herself. But it was of no use. +She broke into tears--quiet but most bitter tears. + +'Robert, I cannot! Oh! you must see I cannot. It is not because I am +hard, but because I am weak. How can I stand up against you? I dare +not--I dare not. If you were not yourself--not my husband----' + +Her voice dropped. Robert guessed that at the bottom of her resistance +there was an intolerable fear of what love might do with her if she once +gave it an opening. He felt himself cruel, brutal, and yet an urgent +sense of all that was at stake drove him on. + +'I would not press or worry you, God knows!' he said, almost piteously, +kissing her forehead as she lay against him. 'But remember, Catherine, I +cannot put these things aside. I once thought I could--that I could fall +back on my historical work, and leave religious matters alone as far as +criticism was concerned. But I cannot. They fill my mind more and more. +I feel more and more impelled to search them out, and to put my +conclusions about them into shape. And all the time this is going on, +are you and I to remain strangers to one another in all that concerns +our truest life--are we, Catherine?' + +He spoke in a low voice of intense feeling. She turned her face and +pressed her lips to his hand. Both had the scene in the wood-path after +her flight and return in their minds, and both were filled with a +despairing sense of the difficulty of living, not through great crises, +but through the detail of every day. + +'Could you not work at other things?' she whispered. + +He was silent, looking straight before him into the moonlit shimmer and +white spectral hazes of the valley, his arms still round her. + +'No!' he burst out at last; 'not till I have satisfied myself. I feel it +burning within me, like a command from God, to work out the problem, to +make it clearer to myself--and to others,' he added deliberately. + +Her heart sank within her. The last words called up before her a dismal +future of controversy and publicity, in which at every step she would be +condemning her husband. + +'And all this time, all these years, perhaps,' he went on--before, in +her perplexity, she could find words,--'is my wife never going to let me +speak freely to her? Am I to act, think, judge, without her knowledge? +Is she to know less of me than a friend, less even than the public for +whom I write or speak?' + +It seemed intolerable to him, all the more that every moment they stood +there together it was being impressed upon him that in fact this was +what she meant, what she had contemplated from the beginning. + +'Robert, I cannot defend myself against you,' she cried, again clinging +to him. 'Oh, think for me! You know what I feel; that I dare not risk +what is not mine!' + +He kissed her again, and then moved away from her to the window. It +began to be plain to him that his effort was merely futile, and had +better not have been made. But his heart was very sore. + +'Do you ever ask yourself,' he said presently, looking steadily into the +night--no, I don't think you can, Catherine--what part the reasoning +faculty, that faculty which marks us out from the animal, was meant to +play in life? Did God give it to us simply that you might trample upon +it and ignore it, both in yourself and me?' + +She had dropped into a chair, and sat with clasped hands, her hair +falling about her white dressing-gown, and framing the nobly-featured +face blanched by the moonlight. She did not attempt a reply, but the +melancholy of an invincible resolution, which was, so to speak, not her +own doing, but rather was like a necessity imposed upon her from +outside, breathed through her silence. + +He turned and looked at her. She raised her arms, and the gesture +reminded him for a moment of the Donatello figure in the Murewell +library--the same delicate austere beauty, the same tenderness, the same +underlying reserve. He took her outstretched hands and held them against +his breast. His hotly-beating heart told him that he was perfectly +right, and that to accept the barriers she was setting up would +impoverish all their future life together. But he could not struggle +with the woman on whom he had already inflicted so severe a practical +trial. Moreover, he felt strangely as he stood there the danger of +rousing in her those illimitable possibilities of the religious temper, +the dread of which had once before risen spectre-like in his heart. + +So once more he yielded. She rewarded him with all the charm, all the +delightfulness, of which under the circumstances she was mistress. They +wandered up the Rhone valley, through the St. Gothard, and spent a +fortnight between Como and Lugano. During these days her one thought was +to revive and refresh him, and he let her tend him, and lent himself to +the various heroic futilities by which she would try--as part of her +nursing mission--to make the future look less empty and their distress +less real. Of course under all this delicate give and take both +suffered; both felt that the promise of their marriage had failed them, +and that they had come dismally down to a second best. But after all +they were young, and the autumn was beautiful--and though they hurt each +other, they were alone together and constantly, passionately, interested +in each other. Italy, too, softened all things--even Catherine's English +tone and temper. As long as the delicious luxury of the Italian autumn, +with all its primitive pagan suggestiveness, was still round them; as +long as they were still among the cities of the Lombard plain--that +battle-ground and highway of nations, which roused all Robert's +historical enthusiasm, and set him reading, discussing, thinking, in his +old impetuous way, about something else than minute problems of +Christian evidence,--the new-born friction between them was necessarily +reduced to a minimum. + + * * * * * + +But with their return home, with their plunge into London life, the +difficulties of the situation began to define themselves more sharply. +In after years, one of Catherine's dreariest memories was the memory of +their first instalment in the Bedford Square house. Robert's anxiety to +make it pleasant and homelike was pitiful to watch. He had none of the +modern passion for upholstery, and probably the vaguest notions of what +was aesthetically correct. But during their furnishing days he was never +tired of wandering about in search of pretty things--a rug, a screen, an +engraving--which might brighten the rooms in which Catherine was to +live. He would put everything in its place with a restless eagerness, +and then Catherine would be called in, and would play her part bravely. +She would smile and ask questions, and admire, and then when Robert had +gone, she would move slowly to the window and look out at the great mass +of the British Museum frowning beyond the little dingy strip of garden, +with a sick longing in her heart for the Murewell cornfield, the +wood-path, the village, the free air-bathed spaces of heath and common. +Oh! this huge London, with its unfathomable poverty and its heartless +wealth--how it oppressed and bewildered her! Its mere grime and squalor, +its murky poisoned atmosphere, were a perpetual trial to the +countrywoman brought up amid the dash of mountain streams and the scents +of mountain pastures. She drooped physically for a time, as did the +child. + +But morally? With Catherine everything really depended on the moral +state. She could have followed Robert to a London living with a joy and +hope which would have completely deadened all these repulsions of the +senses now so active in her. But without this inner glow, in the +presence of the profound spiritual difference circumstance had developed +between her and the man she loved, everything was a burden. Even her +religion, though she clung to it with an ever-increasing tenacity, +failed at this period to bring her much comfort. Every night it seemed +to her that the day had been one long and dreary struggle to make +something out of nothing; and in the morning the night, too, seemed to +have been alive with conflict--_All Thy waves and Thy storms have gone +over me!_ + +Robert guessed it all, and whatever remorseful love could do to soften +such a strain and burden he tried to do. He encouraged her to find work +among the poor; he tried in the tenderest ways to interest her in the +great spectacle of London life which was already, in spite of yearning +and regret, beginning to fascinate and absorb himself. But their +standards were now so different that she was constantly shrinking from +what attracted him, or painfully judging what was to him merely curious +and interesting. He was really more and more oppressed by her +intellectual limitations, though never consciously would he have allowed +himself to admit them, and she was more and more bewildered by what +constantly seemed to her a breaking up of principle, a relaxation of +moral fibre. + +And the work among the poor was difficult. Robert instinctively felt +that for him to offer his services in charitable work to the narrow +Evangelical, whose church Catherine had joined, would have been merely +to invite rebuff. So that even in the love and care of the unfortunate +they were separated. For he had not yet found a sphere of work, and, if +he had, Catherine's invincible impulse in these matters was always to +attach herself to the authorities and powers that be. He could only +acquiesce when she suggested applying to Mr. Clarendon for some +charitable occupation for herself. + +After her letter to him, Catherine had an interview with the vicar at +his home. She was puzzled by the start and sudden pause for recollection +with which he received her name, the tone of compassion which crept into +his talk with her, the pitying look and grasp of the hand with which he +dismissed her. Then, as she walked home, it flashed upon her that she +had seen a copy, some weeks old, of the _Record_ lying on the good man's +table, the very copy which contained Robert's name among the list of men +who during the last ten years had thrown up the Anglican ministry. The +delicate face flushed miserably from brow to chin. Pitied for being +Robert's wife! Oh, monstrous!--incredible! + +Meanwhile Robert, man-like, in spite of all the griefs and sorenesses of +the position, had immeasurably the best of it. In the first place such +incessant activity of mind as his is in itself both tonic and narcotic. +It was constantly generating in him fresh purposes and hopes, constantly +deadening regret, and pushing the old things out of sight. He was full +of many projects, literary and social, but they were all in truth the +fruits of one long experimental process, the passionate attempt of the +reason to justify to itself the God in whom the heart believed. Abstract +thought, as Mr. Grey saw, had had comparatively little to do with +Elsmere's relinquishment of the Church of England. But as soon as the +Christian bases of faith were overthrown, that faith had naturally to +find for itself other supports and attachments. For faith itself--in God +and a spiritual order--had been so wrought into the nature by years of +reverent and adoring living that nothing could destroy it. With Elsmere, +as with all men of religious temperament, belief in Christianity and +faith in God had not at the outset been a matter of reasoning at all, +but of sympathy, feeling, association, daily experience. Then the +intellect had broken in, and destroyed or transformed the belief in +Christianity. But after the crash, _faith_ emerged as strong as ever, +only craving and eager to make a fresh peace, a fresh compact with the +reason. + +Elsmere had heard Grey say long ago in one of the few moments of real +intimacy he had enjoyed with him at Oxford, 'My interest in philosophy +springs solely from the chance it offers me of knowing something more of +God!' Driven by the same thirst he too threw himself into the same +quest, pushing his way laboriously through the philosophical borderlands +of science, through the ethical speculation of the day, through the +history of man's moral and religious past. And while on the one hand the +intellect was able to contribute an ever stronger support to the faith +which was the man, on the other the sphere in him of a patient ignorance +which abstains from all attempts at knowing what man cannot know, and +substitutes trust for either knowledge or despair, was perpetually +widening. 'I take my stand on conscience and the moral life!' was the +upshot of it all. 'In them I find my God! As for all these various +problems, ethical and scientific, which you press upon me, my pessimist +friend, I, too, am bewildered; I, too, have no explanation to offer. But +I trust and wait. In spite of them--beyond them--I have abundantly +enough for faith--for hope--for action!' + +We may quote a passage or two from some letters of his written at this +time to that young Armitstead who had taken his place at Murewell, and +was still there till Mowbray Elsmere should appoint a new man. +Armitstead had been a college friend of Elsmere's. He was a High +Churchman of a singularly gentle and delicate type, and the manner in +which he had received Elsmere's story on the day of his arrival at +Murewell had permanently endeared him to the teller of it. At the same +time the defection from Christianity of a man who at Oxford had been to +him the object of much hero-worship, and, since Oxford, an example of +pastoral efficiency, had painfully affected young Armitstead, and he +began a correspondence with Robert which was in many ways a relief to +both. In Switzerland and Italy, when his wife's gentle inexorable +silence became too oppressive to him, Robert would pour himself out in +letters to Armitstead, and the correspondence did not altogether cease +with his return to London. To the squire during the same period Elsmere +also wrote frequently, but rarely or never on religious matters. + +On one occasion Armitstead had been pressing the favourite Christian +dilemma--Christianity or nothing. Inside Christianity, light and +certainty; outside it, chaos. 'If it were not for the Gospels and the +Church I should be a Positivist to-morrow. Your Theism is a mere +arbitrary hypothesis, at the mercy of any rival philosophical theory. +How, regarding our position as precarious, you should come to regard +your own as stable, is to me incomprehensible!' + +'What I conceive to be the vital difference between Theism and +Christianity,' wrote Elsmere in reply, 'is that as an explanation of +things _Theism can never be disproved_. At the worst it must always +remain in the position of an alternative hypothesis, which the hostile +man of science cannot destroy, though he is under no obligation to adopt +it. Broadly speaking, it is not the facts which are in dispute, but the +inference to be drawn from them. + +'Now, considering the enormous complication of the facts, the Theistic +inference will, to put it at the lowest, always have its place, always +command respect. The man of science may not adopt it, but by no advance +of science that I, at any rate, can foresee, can it be driven out of the +field. + +'Christianity is in a totally different position. Its grounds are not +philosophical but literary and historical. It rests not upon all fact, +but upon a special group of facts. It is, and will always remain, a +great literary and historical problem, a _question of documents and +testimony_. Hence, the Christian explanation is vulnerable in a way in +which the Theistic explanation can never be vulnerable. The contention, +at any rate, of persons in my position is: That to the man who has had +the special training required, and in whom this training has not been +neutralised by any overwhelming bias of temperament, it can be as +clearly demonstrated that the miraculous Christian story rests on a +tissue of mistake, as it can be demonstrated that the Isidorian +Decretals were a forgery, or the correspondence of Paul and Seneca a +pious fraud, or that the mediaeval belief in witchcraft was the product +of physical ignorance and superstition.' + +'You say,' he wrote again, in another connection, to Armitstead from +Milan, 'you say you think my later letters have been far too aggressive +and positive. I, too, am astonished at myself. I do not know my own +mood, it is so clear, so sharp, so combative. Is it the spectacle of +Italy, I wonder--of a country practically without religion--the +spectacle in fact of Latin Europe as a whole, and the practical Atheism +in which it is ingulfed? My dear friend, the problem of the world at +this moment is--_how to find a religion?_--some great conception which +shall be once more capable, as the old were capable, of welding +societies, and keeping man's brutish elements in check. Surely +Christianity of the traditional sort is failing everywhere--less +obviously with us, and in Teutonic Europe generally, but egregiously, +notoriously, in all the Catholic countries. We talk complacently of the +decline of Buddhism. But what have we to say of the decline of +Christianity? And yet this last is infinitely more striking and more +tragic, inasmuch as it affects a more important section of mankind. I, +at any rate, am not one of those who would seek to minimise the results +of this decline for human life, nor can I bring myself to believe that +Positivism or "evolutional morality" will ever satisfy the race. + +'In the period of social struggle which undeniably lies before us, both +in the old and the new world, are we then to witness a war of classes, +unsoftened by the ideal hopes, the ideal law, of faith? It looks like +it. What does the artisan class, what does the town democracy throughout +Europe, care any longer for Christian checks or Christian sanctions as +they have been taught to understand them? Superstition, in certain parts +of rural Europe, there is in plenty, but wherever you get intelligence +and therefore movement, you get at once either indifference to, or a +passionate break with, Christianity. And consider what it means, what it +will mean, this Atheism of the great democracies which are to be our +masters! The world has never seen anything like it; such spiritual +anarchy and poverty combined with such material power and resource. +Every society--Christian and non-Christian--has always till now had its +ideal, of greater or less ethical value, its appeal to something beyond +man. Has Christianity brought us to this: that the Christian nations are +to be the first in the world's history to try the experiment of a life +without faith--that life which you and I, at any rate, are agreed in +thinking a life worthy only of the brute? + +'Oh forgive me! These things must hurt you--they would have hurt me in +old days--but they burn within me, and you bid me speak out. What if it +be God Himself who is driving His painful lesson home to me, to you, to +the world? What does it mean, this gradual growth of what we call +infidelity, of criticism and science on the one hand, this gradual death +of the old traditions on the other? _Sin_, you answer, _the enmity of +the human mind against God, the momentary triumph of Satan._ And so you +acquiesce, heavy-hearted, in God's present defeat, looking for vengeance +and requital hereafter. Well, I am not so ready to believe in man's +capacity to rebel against his Maker! Where you see ruin and sin, I see +the urgent process of Divine education, God's steady ineluctable command +"to put away childish things," the pressure of His spirit on ours +towards new ways of worship and new forms of love!' + + * * * * * + +And after a while, it was with these 'new ways of worship and new forms +of love' that the mind began to be perpetually occupied. The break with +the old things was no sooner complete than the eager soul, incapable +then, as always, of resting in negation or opposition, pressed +passionately forward to a new synthesis, not only speculative, but +practical. Before it rose perpetually the haunting vision of another +palace of faith--another church or company of the faithful, which was to +become the shelter of human aspiration amid the desolation and anarchy +caused by the crashing of the old! How many men and women must have gone +through the same strait as itself--how many must be watching with it +through the darkness for the rising of a new City of God! + +One afternoon, close upon Christmas, he found himself in Parliament +Square, on his way towards Westminster Bridge and the Embankment. The +beauty of a sunset sky behind the Abbey arrested him, and he stood +leaning over the railings beside the Peel statue to look. + +The day before he had passed the same spot with a German friend. His +companion--a man of influence and mark in his own country, who had been +brought up, however, in England, and knew it well--had stopped before +the Abbey and had said to him with emphasis: 'I never find myself in +this particular spot of London without a sense of emotion and reverence. +Other people feel that in treading the Forum of Rome they are at the +centre of human things. I am more thrilled by Westminster than Rome; +your venerable Abbey is to me the symbol of a nationality to which the +modern world owes obligations it can never repay. You are rooted deep in +the past; you have also a future of infinite expansiveness stretching +before you. Among European nations at this moment you alone have freedom +in the true sense, you alone have religion. I would give a year of life +to know what you will have made of your freedom and your religion two +hundred years hence!' + +As Robert recalled the words, the Abbey lay before him, wrapped in the +bluish haze of the winter afternoon. Only the towers rose out of the +mist, gray and black against the red bands of cloud. A pair of pigeons +circled round them, as careless and free in flight as though they were +alone with the towers and the sunset. Below, the streets were full of +people; the omnibuses rolled to and fro; the lamps were just lit; lines +of straggling figures, dark in the half light, were crossing the street +here and there. And to all the human rush and swirl below, the quiet of +the Abbey and the infinite red distances of sky gave a peculiar pathos +and significance. + +Robert filled his eye and sense, and then walked quickly away towards +the Embankment. Carrying the poetry and grandeur of England's past with +him, he turned his face eastward to the great new-made London on the +other side of St. Paul's, the London of the democracy, of the nineteenth +century, and of the future. He was wrestling with himself, a prey to one +of those critical moments of life, when circumstance seems once more to +restore to us the power of choice, of distributing a Yes or a No among +the great solicitations which meet the human spirit on its path from +silence to silence. The thought of his friend's reverence, and of his +own personal debt towards the country to whose long travail of centuries +he owed all his own joys and faculties, was hot within him. + + 'Here and here did England help me--how can I help England,--say!' + +Ah! that vast chaotic London south and east of the great church! He +already knew something of it. A Liberal clergyman there, settled in the +very blackest, busiest heart of it, had already made him welcome on Mr. +Grey's introduction. He had gone with this good man on several occasions +through some little fraction of that teeming world, now so hidden and +peaceful between the murky river mists and the cleaner light-filled +grays of the sky. He had heard much, and pondered a good deal, the quick +mind caught at once by the differences, some tragic, some merely curious +and stimulating, between the monotonous life of his own rural folk, and +the mad rush, the voracious hurry, the bewildering appearances and +disappearances, the sudden ingulfments, of working London. + +Moreover, he had spent a Sunday or two wandering among the East End +churches. There, rather than among the streets and courts outside, as it +had seemed to him, lay the tragedy of the city. Such emptiness, such +desertion, such a hopeless breach between the great craving need outside +and the boon offered it within! Here and there, indeed, a patch of +bright coloured success, as it claimed to be, where the primitive +tendency of man towards the organised excitement of religious ritual, +visible in all nations and civilisations, had been appealed to with more +energy and more results than usual. But in general, blank failure, or +rather obvious want of success--as the devoted men now beating the void +there were themselves the first to admit, with pain and patient +submission to the inscrutable Will of God. + +But is it not time we assured ourselves, he was always asking, whether +God is still in truth behind the offer man is perpetually making to his +brother man on His behalf? He was behind it once, and it had efficacy, +had power. But now--what if all these processes of so-called +destruction and decay were but the mere workings of that divine plastic +force which is for ever moulding human society? What if these beautiful +venerable things which had fallen from him, as from thousands of his +fellows, represented, in the present stage of the world's history, not +the props, but the hindrances, of man? + +And if all these large things were true, as he believed, what should be +the individual's part in this transition England? Surely, at the least, +a part of plain sincerity of act and speech--a correspondence as perfect +as could be reached between the inner faith and the outer word and deed. +So much, at the least, was clearly required of him! + +'Do not imagine, he said to himself, as though with a fierce dread of +possible self-delusion, 'that it is in you to play any great, any +commanding part. Shun the thought of it, if it were possible! But let me +do what is given me to do! Here, in this human wilderness, may I spend +whatever of time or energy or faculty may be mine, in the faithful +attempt to help forward the new House of Faith that is to be, though my +utmost efforts should but succeed in laying some obscure stone in still +unseen foundations! Let me try and hand on to some other human soul, or +souls, before I die, the truth which has freed, and which is now +sustaining, my own heart. Can any man do more? Is not every man who +feels any certainty in him whatever bound to do as much? What matter if +the wise folk scoff, if even at times, and in a certain sense, one seems +to one's self ridiculous--absurdly lonely and powerless! All great +changes are preceded by numbers of sporadic, and as the bystander +thinks, impotent efforts. But while the individual effort sinks, drowned +perhaps in mockery, the general movement quickens, gathers force we know +not how, and-- + + 'While the tired wave vainly breaking, + Seems here no painful inch to gain, + Far back through creeks and inlets making, + Comes silent, flooding in the main!' + +Darkness sank over the river; all the gray and purple distance with its +dim edge of spires and domes against the sky, all the vague intervening +blacknesses of street, or bridge, or railway station were starred and +patterned with lights. The vastness, the beauty of the city filled him +with a sense of mysterious attraction, and as he walked on with his face +uplifted to it, it was as though he took his life in his hand and flung +it afresh into the human gulf. + +'What does it matter if one's work be raw and uncomely! All that lies +outside the great organised traditions of an age must always look so. +Let me bear my witness bravely, not spending life in speech, but not +undervaluing speech--above all, not being ashamed or afraid of it, +because other wise people may prefer a policy of silence. A man has but +the one puny life, the one tiny spark of faith. Better be venturesome +with both for God's sake, than over-cautious, over-thrifty. And--to his +own Master he standeth or falleth!' + +Plans of work of all kinds, literary and practical, thoughts of +preaching in some bare hidden room to men and women orphaned and +stranded like himself, began to crowd upon him. The old clerical +instinct in him winced at some of them. Robert had nothing of the +sectary about him by nature; he was always too deeply and easily +affected by the great historic existences about him. But when the Oxford +man or the ex-official of one of the most venerable and decorous of +societies protested, the believer, or, if you will, the enthusiast, put +the protest by. + +And so the dream gathered substance and stayed with him, till at last he +found himself at his own door. As he closed it behind him, Catherine +came out into the pretty old hall from the dining-room. + +'Robert, have you walked all the way?' + +'Yes. I came along the Embankment. Such a beautiful evening!' + +He slipped his arm inside hers, and they mounted the stairs together. +She glanced at him wistfully. She was perfectly aware that these months +were to him months of incessant travail of spirit, and she caught at +this moment the old strenuous look of eye and brow she knew so well. A +year ago, and every thought of his mind had been open to her--and +now--she herself had shut them out--but her heart sank within her. + +She turned and kissed him. He bent his head fondly over her. But +inwardly all the ardour of his mood collapsed at the touch of her. For +the protests of a world in arms can be withstood with joy, but the +protest that steals into your heart, that takes love's garb and uses +love's ways--_there_ is the difficulty! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +But Robert was some time in finding his opening, in realising any +fraction of his dream. At first he tried work under the Broad Church +vicar to whom Grey had introduced him. He undertook some +rent-collecting, and some evening lectures on elementary science to boys +and men. But after a while he began to feel his position false and +unsatisfactory. In truth, his opinions were in the main identical with +those of the vicar under whom he was acting. But Mr. Vernon was a Broad +Churchman, belonged to the Church Reform movement, and thought it +absolutely necessary to 'keep things going,' and by a policy of prudent +silence and gradual expansion from within, to save the great 'plant' of +the Establishment from falling wholesale into the hands of the High +Churchmen. In consequence he was involved, as Robert held, in endless +contradictions and practical falsities of speech and action. His large +church was attended by a handful of some fifty to a hundred persons. +Vernon could not preach what he did believe, and would not preach, more +than was absolutely necessary, what he did not believe. He was +hard-working and kind-hearted, but the perpetual divorce between thought +and action, which his position made inevitable, was constantly blunting +and weakening all he did. His whole life, indeed, was one long waste of +power, simply for lack of an elementary frankness. + +But if these became Robert's views as to Vernon, Vernon's feeling +towards Elsmere after six weeks' acquaintance was not less decided. He +was constitutionally timid, and he probably divined in his new helper a +man of no ordinary calibre, whose influence might very well turn out +some day to be of the 'incalculably diffusive' kind. He grew +uncomfortable, begged Elsmere to beware of any 'direct religious +teaching,' talked in warm praise of a 'policy of omissions,' and in +equally warm denunciation of 'anything like a policy of attack.' In +short, it became plain that two men so much alike, and yet so different, +could not long co-operate. + +However, just as the fact was being brought home to Elsmere, a friendly +chance intervened. + +Hugh Flaxman, the Leyburns' new acquaintance and Lady Helen's brother, +had been drawn to Elsmere at first sight; and a meeting or two, now at +Lady Charlotte's, now at the Leyburns', had led both men far on the way +to a friendship. Of Hugh Flaxman himself more hereafter. At present all +that need be recorded is that it was at Mr. Flaxman's house, overlooking +St. James's Park, Robert first met a man who was to give him the opening +for which he was looking. + +Mr. Flaxman was fond of breakfast parties _a la_ Rogers, and on the +first occasion when Robert could be induced to attend one of these +functions, he saw opposite to him what he supposed to be a lad of +twenty, a young slip of a fellow, whose sallies of fun and invincible +good humour attracted him greatly. + +Sparkling brown eyes, full lips rich in humour and pugnacity, 'lockes +crull as they were layde in presse,' the same look of 'wonderly' +activity too, in spite of his short stature and dainty make, as Chaucer +lends his squire--the type was so fresh and pleasing that Robert was +more and more held by it, especially when he discovered to his +bewilderment that the supposed stripling must be from his talk a man +quite as old as himself, an official besides, filling what was clearly +some important place in the world. He took his full share in the +politics and literature started at the table, and presently, when +conversation fell on the proposed municipality for London, said things +to which the whole party listened. Robert's curiosity was aroused, and +after breakfast he questioned his host and was promptly introduced to +'Mr. Murray Edwardes.' + +Whereupon it turned out that this baby-faced sage was filling a post, in +the work of which perhaps few people in London could have taken so much +interest as Robert Elsmere. + +Fifty years before, a wealthy merchant who had been one of the chief +pillars of London Unitarianism had made his will and died. His great +warehouses lay in one of the Eastern riverside districts of the city, +and in his will he endeavoured to do something according to his lights +for the place in which he had amassed his money. He left a fairly large +bequest wherewith to build and endow a Unitarian chapel and found +certain Unitarian charities, in the heart of what was even then one of +the densest and most poverty-stricken of London parishes. For a long +time, however, chapel and charities seemed likely to rank as one of the +idle freaks of religious wealth and nothing more. Unitarianism of the +old sort is perhaps the most illogical creed that exists, and certainly +it has never been the creed of the poor. In old days it required the +presence of a certain arid stratum of the middle classes to live and +thrive at all. This stratum was not to be found in R----, which rejoiced +instead in the most squalid types of poverty and crime, types wherewith +the mild shrivelled Unitarian minister had about as much power of +grappling as a Poet Laureate with a Trafalgar Square Socialist. + +Soon after the erection of the chapel, there arose that shaking of the +dry bones of religious England which we call the Tractarian movement. +For many years the new force left R---- quite undisturbed. The parish +church droned away, the Unitarian minister preached decorously to empty +benches, knowing nothing of the agitations outside. At last, however, +towards the end of the old minister's life, a powerful church of the new +type, staffed by friends and pupils of Pusey, rose in the centre of +R----, and the little Unitarian chapel was for a time more snuffed out +than ever, a fate which this time it shared dismally with the parish +church. As generally happened, however, in those days, the proceedings +at this new and splendid St. Wilfrid's were not long in stirring up the +Protestantism of the British rough,--the said Protestantism being always +one of the finest excuses for brickbats of which the modern cockney is +master. The parish lapsed into a state of private war--hectic clergy +heading exasperated processions or intoning defiant Litanies on the one +side,--mobs, rotten eggs, dead cats, and blatant Protestant orators on +the other. + +The war went on practically for years, and while it was still raging the +minister of the Unitarian chapel died, and the authorities concerned +chose in his place a young fellow, the son of a Bristol minister, a +Cambridge man besides, as chance would have it, of brilliant +attainments, and unusually commended from many quarters, even including +some Church ones of the Liberal kind. This curly-haired youth, as he was +then in reality, and as to his own quaint vexation he went on seeming to +be up to quite middle age, had the wit to perceive at the moment of his +entry on the troubled scene that behind all the mere brutal opposition +to the new church, and in contrast with the sheer indifference of +three-fourths of the district, there was a small party consisting of an +aristocracy of the artisans, whose protest against the Puseyite doings +was of a much quieter sterner sort, and amongst whom the uproar had +mainly roused a certain crude power of thinking. He threw himself upon +this element, which he rather divined than discovered, and it responded. +He preached a simple creed, drove it home by pure and generous living; +he lectured, taught, brought down workers from the West End, and before +he had been five years in harness had not only made himself a power in +R----, but was beginning to be heard of and watched with no small +interest by many outsiders. + +This was the man on whom Robert had now stumbled. Before they had talked +twenty minutes each was fascinated by the other. They said good-bye to +their host, and wandered out together into St. James's Park, where the +trees were white with frost and an orange sun was struggling through the +fog. Here Murray Edwardes poured out the whole story of his ministry to +attentive ears. Robert listened eagerly. Unitarianism was not a familiar +subject of thought to him. He had never dreamt of joining the +Unitarians, and was indeed long ago convinced that in the beliefs of a +Channing no one once fairly started on the critical road could +rationally stop. That common thinness and aridity, too, of the Unitarian +temper had weighed with him. But here, in the person of Murray Edwardes, +it was as though he saw something old and threadbare revivified. The +young man's creed, as he presented it, had grace, persuasiveness, even +unction; and there was something in his tone of mind which was like a +fresh wind blowing over the fevered places of the other's heart. + +They talked long and earnestly, Edwardes describing his own work, and +the changes creeping over the modern Unitarian body, Elsmere saying +little, asking much. + +At last the young man looked at Elsmere with eyes of bright decision. + +'You cannot work with the Church!' he said--'it is impossible. You will +only wear yourself out in efforts to restrain what you could do +infinitely more good, as things stand now, by pouring out. Come to +us!--I will put you in the way. You shall be hampered by no pledges of +any sort. Come and take the direction of some of my workers. We have all +got our hands more than full. Your knowledge, your experience, would be +invaluable. There is no other opening like it in England just now for +men of your way of thinking and mine. Come! Who knows what we may be +putting our hands to--what fruit may grow from the smallest seed?' + +The two men stopped beside the lightly frozen water. Robert gathered +that in this soul, too, there had risen the same large intoxicating +dream of a reorganised Christendom, a new wide-spreading shelter of +faith for discouraged browbeaten man, as in his own. 'I will!' he said +briefly, after a pause, his own look kindling--'it is the opening I have +been pining for. I will give you all I can, and bless you for the +chance.' + + * * * * * + +That evening Robert got home late after a busy day full of various +engagements. Mary, after some waiting up for 'Fader,' had just been +carried protesting, red lips pouting, and fat legs kicking, off to bed. +Catherine was straightening the room, which had been thrown into +confusion by the child's romps. + +It was with an effort--for he knew it would be a shock to her--that he +began to talk to her about the breakfast-party at Mr. Flaxman's, and his +talk with Murray Edwardes. But he had made it a rule with himself to +tell her everything that he was doing or meant to do. She would not let +him tell her what he was thinking. But as much openness as there could +be between them, there should be. + +Catherine listened--still moving about the while--the thin beautiful +lips becoming more and more compressed. Yes, it was hard to her, very +hard; the people among whom she had been brought up, her father +especially, would have held out the hand of fellowship to any body of +Christian people, but not to the Unitarian. No real barrier of feeling +divided them from any orthodox Dissenter, but the gulf between them and +the Unitarian had been dug very deep by various forces--forces of +thought originally, of strong habit and prejudice in the course of time. + +'He is going to work with them now,' she thought bitterly; 'soon he will +be one of them--perhaps a Unitarian minister himself.' + +And for the life of her, as he told his tale, she could find nothing but +embarrassed monosyllables, and still more embarrassed silences, +wherewith to answer him. Till at last he too fell silent, feeling once +more the sting of a now habitual discomfort. + +Presently, however, Catherine came to sit down beside him. She laid her +head against his knee, saying nothing, but gathering his hand closely in +both her own. + +Poor woman's heart! One moment in rebellion, the next a suppliant. He +bent down quickly and kissed her. + +'Would you like,' he said presently, after both had sat silent a while +in the firelight, 'would you care to go to Madame de Netteville's +to-night?' + +'By all means,' said Catherine with a sort of eagerness. 'It _was_ +Friday she asked us for, wasn't it? We will be quick over dinner, and I +will go and dress.' + +In that last ten minutes which Robert had spent with the squire in his +bedroom, on the Monday afternoon, when they were to have walked. Mr. +Wendover had drily recommended Elsmere to cultivate Madame de +Netteville. He sat propped up in his chair, white, gaunt, and cynical, +and this remark of his was almost the only reference he would allow to +the Elsmere move. + +'You had better go there,' he said huskily, 'it will do you good. She +gets the first-rate people and she makes them talk, which Lady Charlotte +can't. Too many fools at Lady Charlotte's; she waters the wine too +much.' + +And he had persisted with the subject--using it, as Elsmere thought, as +a means of warding off other conversation. He would not ask Elsmere's +plans, and he would not allow a word about himself. + +There had been a heart attack, old Meyrick thought, coupled with signs +of nervous strain and excitement. It was the last ailment which +evidently troubled the doctor most. But, behind the physical breakdown, +there was to Robert's sense something else, a spiritual something, +infinitely forlorn and piteous, which revealed itself wholly against the +elder man's' will, and filled the younger with a dumb helpless rush of +sympathy. Since his departure Robert had made the keeping up of his +correspondence with the squire a binding obligation, and he was to-night +chiefly anxious to go to Madame de Netteville's that he might write an +account of it to Murewell. + +Still the squire's talk, and his own glimpse of her at Murewell, had +made him curious to see more of the woman herself. The squire's ways of +describing her were always half approving, half sarcastic. Robert +sometimes imagined that he himself had been at one time more under her +spell than he cared to confess. If so, it must have been when she was +still in Paris, the young English widow of a man of old French family, +rich, fascinating, distinguished, and the centre of a small _salon_, +admission to which was one of the social blue ribbons of Paris. + +Since the war of 1870 Madame de Netteville had fixed her headquarters in +London, and it was to her house in Hans Place that the squire wrote to +her about the Elsmeres. She owed Roger Wendover debts of various kinds, +and she had an encouraging memory of the young clergyman on the terrace +at Murewell. So she promptly left her cards, together with the +intimation that she was at home always on Friday evenings. + +'I have never seen the wife,' she meditated, as her delicate jewelled +hand drew up the window of the brougham in front of the Elsmeres' +lodgings. 'But if she is the ordinary country clergyman's spouse, the +squire of course will have given the young man a hint.' + +But whether from oblivion, or from some instinct of grim humour towards +Catherine, whom he had always vaguely disliked, the squire said not one +word about his wife to Robert in the course of their talk of Madame de +Netteville. + +Catherine took pains with her dress, sorely wishing to do Robert credit. +She put on one of the gowns she had taken to Murewell when she married. +It was black, simply made, and had been a favourite with both of them in +the old surroundings. + +So they drove off to Madame de Netteville's. Catherine's heart was +beating faster than usual as she mounted the twisting stairs of the +luxurious little house. All these new social experiences were a trial to +her. But she had the vaguest, most unsuspicious ideas of what she was to +see in this particular house. + +A long low room was thrown open to them. Unlike most English rooms, it +was barely though richly furnished. A Persian carpet, of a self-coloured +grayish blue, threw the gilt French chairs and the various figures +sitting upon them into delicate relief. The walls were painted white, +and had a few French mirrors and girandoles upon them, half a dozen fine +French portraits, too, here and there, let into the wall in oval frames. +The subdued light came from the white sides of the room, and seemed to +be there solely for social purposes. You could hardly have read or +written in the room, but you could see a beautiful woman in a beautiful +dress there, and you could talk there, either _tete-a-tete_, or to the +assembled company, to perfection, so cunningly was it all devised. + +When the Elsmeres entered, there were about a dozen people present--ten +gentlemen and two ladies. One of the ladies, Madame de Netteville, was +lying back in the corner of a velvet divan placed against the wall, a +screen between her and a splendid fire that threw its blaze out into the +room. The other, a slim woman with closely curled fair hair, and a neck +abnormally long and white, sat near her, and the circle of men was +talking indiscriminately to both. + +As the footman announced Mr. and Mrs. Elsmere, there was a general stir +of surprise. The men looked round; Madame de Netteville half rose with a +puzzled look. It was more than a month since she had dropped her +invitation. Then a flash, not altogether of pleasure, passed over her +face, and she said a few hasty words to the woman near her, advancing +the moment afterwards to give her hand to Catherine. + +'This is very kind of you, Mrs. Elsmere, to remember me so soon. I had +imagined you were hardly settled enough yet to give me the pleasure of +seeing you.' + +But the eyes fixed on Catherine, eyes which took in everything, were not +cordial, for all their smile. + +Catherine, looking up at her, was overpowered by her excessive manner, +and by the woman's look of conscious sarcastic strength, struggling +through all the outer softness of beauty and exquisite dress. + +'Mr. Elsmere, you will find this room almost as hot, I am afraid, as +that afternoon on which we met last. Let me introduce you to Count +Wielandt--Mr. Elsmere. Mrs. Elsmere, will you come over here, beside +Lady Aubrey Willert.' + +Robert found himself bowing to a young diplomatist, who seemed to him +to look at him very much as he himself might have scrutinised an +inhabitant of New Guinea. Lady Aubrey made an imperceptible movement of +the head as Catherine was presented to her, and Madame de Netteville, +smiling and biting her lip a little, fell back into her seat. + +There was a faint odour of smoke in the room. As Catherine sat down, a +young exquisite a few yards from her threw the end of a cigarette into +the fire with a little sharp decided gesture. Lady Aubrey also pushed +away a cigarette case which lay beside her hand. + +Everybody there had the air more or less of an _habitue_ of the house; +and when the conversation began again, the Elsmeres found it very hard, +in spite of certain perfunctory efforts on the part of Madame de +Netteville, to take any share in it. + +'Well, I believe the story about Desforets is true,' said the +fair-haired young Apollo, who had thrown away his cigarette, lolling +back in his chair. + +Catherine started, the little scene with Rose and Langham in the English +rectory garden flashing incongruously back upon her. + +'If you get it from the _Ferret_, my dear Evershed,' said the ex-Tory +minister, Lord Rupert, 'you may put it down as a safe lie. As for me, I +believe she has a much shrewder eye to the main chance.' + +'What do you mean?' said the other, raising astonished eyebrows. + +'Well, it doesn't _pay_, you know, to write yourself down a fiend--not +quite.' + +'What--you think it will affect her audiences? Well, that is a good +joke!' and the young man laughed immoderately, joined by several of the +other guests. + +'I don't imagine it will make any difference to you, my good friend,' +returned Lord Rupert imperturbably; 'but the British public haven't got +your nerve. They _may_ take it awkwardly--I don't say they will--when a +woman who has turned her own young sister out of doors at night, in St. +Petersburg, so that ultimately as a consequence the girl dies, comes to +ask them to clap her touching impersonations of injured virtue.' + +'What has one to do with an actress's private life, my dear Lord +Rupert?' asked Madame de Netteville, her voice slipping with a smooth +clearness into the conversation, her eyes darting light from under +straight black brows. + +'What indeed!' said the young man who had begun the conversation with a +disagreeable enigmatical smile, stretching out his hand for another +cigarette, and drawing it back with a look under his drooped eyelids--a +look of cold impertinent scrutiny--at Catherine Elsmere. + +'Ah! well--I don't want to be obtrusively moral--Heaven forbid! But +there is such a thing as destroying the illusion to such an extent that +you injure your pocket. Desforets is doing it--doing it actually in +Paris too.' + +There was a ripple of laughter. + +'Paris and illusions--_O mon Dieu!_' groaned young Evershed, when he had +done laughing, laying meditative hands on his knees and gazing into the +fire. + +'I tell you I have seen it,' said Lord Rupert, waxing combative, and +slapping the leg he was nursing with emphasis. 'The last time I went to +see Desforets in Paris the theatre was crammed, and the +house--theatrically speaking--_ice_. They received her in dead +silence--they gave her not one single recall--and they only gave her a +clap, that I can remember, at those two or three points in the play +where clap they positively must or burst. They go to see her--but they +loathe her--and they let her know it.' + +'Bah!' said his opponent, 'it is only because they are tired of her. +Her vagaries don't amuse them any longer--they know them by heart. +And--by George! she has some pretty rivals too, now!' he added +reflectively,--'not to speak of the Bernhardt.' + +'Well, the Parisians _can_ be shocked,' said Count Wielandt in excellent +English, bending forward so as to get a good view of his hostess. 'They +are just now especially shocked by the condition of English morals!' + +The twinkle in his eye was irresistible. The men, understanding his +reference to the avidity with which certain English aristocratic +scandals had been lately seized upon by the French papers, laughed +out--so did Lady Aubrey. Madame de Netteville contented herself with a +smile. + +'They profess to be shocked, too, by Renan's last book,' said the editor +from the other side of the room. + +'Dear me!' said Lady Aubrey, with meditative scorn, fanning herself +lightly the while, her thin but extraordinarily graceful head and neck +thrown out against the golden brocade of the cushion behind her. + +'Oh! what so many of them feel in Renan's case, of course,' said Madame +de Netteville, 'is that every book he writes now gives a fresh opening +to the enemy to blaspheme. Your eminent freethinker can't afford just +yet, in the present state of the world, to make himself socially +ridiculous. The cause suffers.' + +'Just my feeling,' said young Evershed calmly. 'Though I mayn't care a +rap about him personally, I prefer that a man on my own front bench +shouldn't make a public ass of himself if he can help it--not for his +sake, of course, but for mine!' + +Robert looked at Catherine. She sat upright by the side of Lady Aubrey; +her face, of which the beauty to-night seemed lost in rigidity, pale and +stiff. With a contraction of heart he plunged himself into the +conversation. On his road home that evening he had found an important +foreign telegram posted up at the small literary club to which he had +belonged since Oxford days. He made a remark about it now to Count +Wielandt; and the diplomatist, turning rather unwillingly to face his +questioner, recognised that the remark was a shrewd one. + +Presently the young man's frank intelligence had told. On his way to and +from the Holy Land three years before Robert had seen something of the +East, and it so happened that he remembered the name of Count Wielandt +as one of the foreign secretaries of legation present at an official +party given by the English Ambassador at Constantinople, which he and +his mother had attended on their return journey, in virtue of a family +connection with the Ambassador. All that he could glean from memory he +made quick use of now, urged at first by the remorseful wish to make +this new world into which he had brought Catherine less difficult than +he knew it must have been during the last quarter of an hour. + +But after a while he found himself leading the talk of a section of the +room, and getting excitement and pleasure out of the talk itself. Ever +since that Eastern journey he had kept an eye on the subjects which had +interested him then, reading in his rapid voracious way all that came +across him at Murewell, especially in the squire's foreign newspapers +and reviews, and storing it when read in a remarkable memory. + +Catherine, after the failure of some conversational attempts between her +and Madame de Netteville, fell to watching her husband with a start of +strangeness and surprise. She had scarcely seen him at Oxford among his +equals; and she had very rarely been present at his talks with the +squire. In some ways, and owing to the instinctive reserves set up +between them for so long, her intellectual knowledge of him was very +imperfect. His ease, his resource, among these men of the world, for +whom--independent of all else--she felt a countrywoman's dislike, filled +her with a kind of bewilderment. + +'Are you new to London?' Lady Aubrey asked her presently, in that tone +of absolute detachment from the person addressed which certain women +manage to perfection. She, too, had been watching the husband, and the +sight had impressed her with a momentary curiosity to know what the +stiff, handsome, dowdily-dressed wife was made of. + +'We have been two months here,' said Catherine, her large gray eyes +taking in her companion's very bare shoulders, the costly fantastic +dress, and the diamonds flashing against the white skin. + +'In what part?' + +'In Bedford Square.' + +Lady Aubrey was silent. She had no ideas on the subject of Bedford +Square at command. + +'We are very central,' said Catherine, feeling desperately that she was +doing Robert no credit at all, and anxious to talk if only something +could be found to talk about. + +'Oh yes, you are near the theatres,' said the other indifferently. + +This was hardly an aspect of the matter which had yet occurred to +Catherine. A flash of bitterness ran through her. Had they left their +Murewell life to be 'near the theatres,' and kept at arm's length by +supercilious great ladies? + +'We are very far from the Park,' she answered with an effort. 'I wish we +weren't, for my little girl's sake.' + +'Oh, you have a little girl! How old?' + +'Sixteen months.' + +'Too young to be a nuisance yet. Mine are just old enough to be in +everybody's way. Children are out of place in London. I always want to +leave mine in the country, but my husband objects,' said Lady Aubrey +coolly. There was a certain piquancy in saying frank things to this +stiff Madonna-faced woman. + +Madame de Netteville, meanwhile, was keeping up a conversation in an +undertone with young Evershed, who had come to sit on a stool beside +her, and was gazing up at her with eyes of which the expression was +perfectly understood by several persons present. The handsome, +dissipated, ill-conditioned youth had been her slave and shadow for the +last two years. His devotion now no longer amused her, and she was +endeavouring to get rid of it and of him. But the process was a +difficult one, and took both time and _finesse_. + +She kept her eye, notwithstanding, on the new-comers whom the squire's +introduction had brought to her that night. When the Elsmeres rose to +go, she said good-bye to Catherine with an excessive politeness, under +which her poor guest, conscious of her own _gaucherie_ during the +evening, felt the touch of satire she was perhaps meant to feel. But +when Catherine was well ahead Madame de Netteville gave Robert one of +her most brilliant smiles. + +'Friday evening, Mr. Elsmere; always Fridays. You will remember?' + +The _naivete_ of Robert's social view, and the mobility of his temper, +made him easily responsive. He had just enjoyed half an hour's brilliant +talk with two or three of the keenest and most accomplished men in +Europe. Catherine had slipped out of his sight meanwhile, and the +impression of their _entree_ had been effaced. He made Madame de +Netteville, therefore, a cordial smiling reply before his tall slender +form disappeared after that of his wife. + +'Agreeable--rather an acquisition!' said Madame de Netteville to Lady +Aubrey, with a light motion of the head towards Robert's retreating +figure. 'But the wife! Good heavens! I owe Roger Wendover a grudge. I +think he might have made it plain to those good people that I don't want +strange women at my Friday evenings.' + +Lady Aubrey laughed. 'No doubt she is a genius, or a saint, in mufti. +She might be handsome too if some one would dress her.' + +Madame de Netteville shrugged her shoulders. 'Oh! life is not long +enough to penetrate that kind of person,' she said. + +Meanwhile the 'person' was driving homeward very sad and ill at ease. +She was vexed that she had not done better, and yet she was wounded by +Robert's enjoyment. The Puritan in her blood was all aflame. As she sat +looking into the motley lamplit night, she could have 'testified' like +any prophetess of old. + +Robert meanwhile, his hand slipped into hers, was thinking of Wielandt's +talk, and of some racy stories of Berlin celebrities told by a young +_attache_ who had joined their group. His lips were lightly smiling, his +brow serene. + +But as he helped her down from the cab, and they stood in the hall +together, he noticed the pale discomposure of her looks. Instantly the +familiar dread and pain returned upon him. + +'Did you like it, Catherine?' he asked her, with something like +timidity, as they stood together by their bedroom fire. + +She sank into a low chair and sat a moment staring at the blaze. He was +startled by her look of suffering, and, kneeling, he put his arms +tenderly round her. + +'Oh, Robert, Robert!' she cried, falling on his neck. + +'What is it?' he asked, kissing her hair. + +'I seem all at sea,' she said in a choked voice, her face hidden,--'the +old landmarks swallowed up! I am always judging and condemning,--always +protesting. What am I that I should judge? But how--how--can I help it?' + +She drew herself away from him, once more looking into the fire with +drawn brows. + +'Darling, the world is full of difference. Men and women take life in +different ways. Don't be so sure yours is the only right one.' + +He spoke with a moved gentleness, taking her hand the while. + +'"_This_ is the way, walk ye in it!"' she said presently, with strong, +almost stern emphasis. 'Oh, those women, and that talk! Hateful!' + +He rose and looked down on her from the mantelpiece. Within him was a +movement of impatience, repressed almost at once by the thought of that +long night at Murewell, when he had vowed to himself to 'make amends'! + +And if that memory had not intervened she would still have disarmed him +wholly. + +'Listen!' she said to him suddenly, her eyes kindling with a strange +childish pleasure. 'Do you hear the wind, the west wind? Do you remember +how it used to shake the house, how it used to come sweeping through the +trees in the wood-path? It must be trying the study window now, blowing +the vine against it.' + +A yearning passion breathed through every feature. It seemed to him she +saw nothing before her. Her longing soul was back in the old haunts, +surrounded by the old loved forms and sounds. It went to his heart. He +tried to soothe her with the tenderest words remorseful love could +find. But the conflict of feeling--grief, rebellion, doubt, +self-judgment--would not be soothed, and long after she had made him +leave her and he had fallen asleep, she knelt on, a white and rigid +figure in the dying firelight, the wind shaking the old house, the +eternal murmur of London booming outside. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Meanwhile, as if to complete the circle of pain with which poor +Catherine's life was compassed, it began to be plain to her that, in +spite of the hard and mocking tone Rose generally adopted with regard to +him, Edward Langham was constantly at the house in Lerwick Gardens, and +that it was impossible he should be there so much unless in some way or +other Rose encouraged it. + +The idea of such a marriage--nay, of such a friendship--was naturally as +repugnant as ever to her. It had been one of the bitterest moments of a +bitter time when, at their first meeting after the crisis in her life, +Langham, conscious of a sudden movement of pity for a woman he disliked, +had pressed the hand she held out to him in a way which clearly showed +her what was in his mind, and had then passed on to chat and smoke with +Robert in the study, leaving her behind to realise the gulf that lay +between the present and that visit of his to Murewell, when Robert and +she had felt in unison towards him, his opinions, and his conduct to +Rose, as towards everything else of importance in their life. + +Now it seemed to her Robert must necessarily look at the matter +differently, and she could not make up her mind to talk to him about it. +In reality, his objections had never had the same basis as hers, and he +would have given her as strong a support as ever, if she had asked for +it. But she held her peace, and he, absorbed in other things, took no +notice. Besides, he knew Langham too well. He had never been able to +take Catherine's alarms seriously. + +An attentive onlooker, however, would have admitted that this time, at +any rate, they had their justification. Why Langham was so much in the +Leyburns' drawing-room during these winter months was a question that +several people asked--himself not least. He had not only pretended to +forget Rose Leyburn during the eighteen months which had passed since +their first acquaintance at Murewell--he had for all practical purposes +forgotten her. It is only a small proportion of men and women who are +capable of passion on the great scale at all; and certainly, as we have +tried to show, Langham was not among them. He had had a passing moment +of excitement at Murewell, soon put down, and followed by a week of +extremely pleasant sensations, which, like most of his pleasures, had +ended in reaction and self-abhorrence. He had left Murewell remorseful, +melancholy, and ill at ease, but conscious, certainly, of a great relief +that he and Rose Leyburn were not likely to meet again for long. + +Then his settlement in London had absorbed him, as all such matters +absorb men who have become the slaves of their own solitary habits, and +in the joy of his new freedom, and the fresh zest for learning it had +aroused in him, the beautiful unmanageable child who had disturbed his +peace at Murewell was not likely to be more, but less, remembered. When +he stumbled across her unexpectedly in the National Gallery, his +determining impulse had been merely one of flight. + +However, as he had written to Robert towards the beginning of his London +residence, there was no doubt that his migration had made him for the +time much more human, observant, and accessible. Oxford had become to +him an oppression and a nightmare, and as soon as he had turned his back +on it his mental lungs seemed once more to fill with air. He took his +modest part in the life of the capital; happy in the obscurity afforded +him by the crowd; rejoicing in the thought that his life and his affairs +were once more his own, and the academical yoke had been slipped for +ever. + +It was in this mood of greater cheerfulness and energy that his fresh +sight of Rose found him. For the moment, he was perhaps more susceptible +than he ever could have been before to her young perfections, her +beauty, her brilliancy, her provoking stimulating ways. Certainly, from +that first afternoon onwards he became more and more restless to watch +her, to be near her, to see what she made of herself and her gifts. In +general, though it was certainly owing to her that he came so much, she +took small notice of him. He regarded, or chose to regard, himself as a +mere 'item'--something systematically overlooked and forgotten in the +bustle of her days and nights. He saw that she thought badly of him, +that the friendship he might have had was now proudly refused him, that +their first week together had left a deep impression of resentment and +hostility in her mind. And all the same he came; and she asked him! And +sometimes, after an hour when she had been more difficult or more +satirical than usual, ending notwithstanding with a little change of +tone, a careless 'You will find us next Wednesday as usual; So-and-so is +coming to play,' Langham would walk home in a state of feeling he did +not care to analyse, but which certainly quickened the pace of life a +good deal. She would not let him try his luck at friendship again, but +in the strangest slightest ways did she not make him suspect every now +and then that he _was_ in some sort important to her, that he sometimes +preoccupied her against her will; that her will, indeed, sometimes +escaped her, and failed to control her manner to him? + +It was not only his relations to the beauty, however, his interest in +her career, or his perpetual consciousness of Mrs. Elsmere's cold +dislike and disapproval of his presence in her mother's drawing-room, +that accounted for Langham's heightened mental temperature this winter. +The existence and the proceedings of Mr. Hugh Flaxman had a very +considerable share in it. + +'Tell me about Mr. Langham,' said Mr. Flaxman once to Agnes Leyburn, in +the early days of his acquaintance with the family; 'is he an old +friend?' + +'Of Robert's,' replied Agnes, her cheerful impenetrable look fixed upon +the speaker. 'My sister met him once for a week in the country at the +Elsmeres'. My mother and I have been only just introduced to him.' + +Hugh Flaxman pondered the information a little. + +'Does he strike you as--well--what shall we say?--unusual?' + +His smile struck one out of her. + +'Even Robert might admit that,' she said demurely. + +'Is Elsmere so attached to him? I own I was provoked just now by his +tone about Elsmere. I was remarking on the evident physical and mental +strain your brother-in-law had gone through, and he said with a +_nonchalance_ I cannot convey: "Yes, it is astonishing Elsmere should +have ventured it. I confess I often wonder whether it was worth while." +"Why?" said I, perhaps a little hotly. Well, he didn't know--wouldn't +say. But I gathered that, according to him, Elsmere is still swathed in +such an unconscionable amount of religion that the few rags and patches +he has got rid of are hardly worth the discomfort of the change. It +seemed to me the tone of the very cool spectator, rather than the +friend. However--does your sister like him?' + +'I don't know,' said Agnes, looking her questioner full in the face. + +Hugh Flaxman's fair complexion flushed a little. He got up to go. + +He is one of the most extraordinarily handsome persons I ever saw,' he +remarked as he buttoned up his coat. 'Don't you think so?' + +'Yes,' said Agnes dubiously, 'if he didn't stoop, and if he didn't in +general look half-asleep.' + +Hugh Flaxman departed more puzzled than ever as to the reason for the +constant attendance of this uncomfortable anti-social person at the +Leyburns' house. Being himself a man of very subtle and fastidious +tastes, he could imagine that so original a suitor, with such eyes, such +an intellectual reputation so well sustained by scantiness of speech and +the most picturesque capacity for silence, _might_ have attractions for +a romantic and wilful girl. But where were the signs of it? Rose rarely +talked to him, and was always ready to make him the target of a +sub-acid raillery. Agnes was clearly indifferent to him, and Mrs. +Leyburn equally clearly afraid of him. Mrs. Elsmere, too, seemed to +dislike him, and yet there he was, week after week. Flaxman could not +make it out. + +Then he tried to explore the man himself. He started various topics with +him--University reform, politics, music. In vain. In his most +characteristic Oxford days Langham had never assumed a more wholesale +ignorance of all subjects in heaven and earth, and never stuck more +pertinaciously to the flattest forms of commonplace. Flaxman walked away +at last boiling over. The man of parts masquerading as the fool is +perhaps at least as exasperating as the fool playing at wisdom. + +However, he was not the only person irritated. After one of these +fragments of conversation Langham also walked rapidly home in a state of +most irrational petulance, his hands thrust with energy into the pockets +of his overcoat. + +'No, my successful aristocrat, you shall not have everything your own +way so easily with me or with _her_! You may break me, but you shall not +play upon me. And as for her, I will see it out--I will see it out!' + +And he stiffened himself as he walked, feeling life electric all about +him, and a strange new force tingling in every vein. + +Meanwhile, however, Mr. Flaxman was certainly having a good deal of his +own way. Since the moment when his aunt, Lady Charlotte, had introduced +him to Miss Leyburn--watching him the while with a half-smile which soon +broadened into one of sly triumph--Hugh Flaxman had persuaded himself +that country houses are intolerable even in the shooting season, and +that London is the only place of residence during the winter for the man +who aspires to govern his life on principles of reason. Through his +influence and that of his aunt, Rose and Agnes--Mrs. Leyburn never went +out--were being carried into all the high life that London can supply in +November and January. Wealthy, high-born, and popular, he was gradually +devoting his advantages in the freest way to Rose's service. He was an +excellent musical amateur, and he was always proud to play with her; he +had a fine country house, and the little rooms on Campden Hill were +almost always filled with flowers from his gardens; he had a famous +musical library, and its treasures were lavished on the girl violinist; +he had a singularly wide circle of friends, and with his whimsical +energy he was soon inclined to make kindness to the two sisters the one +test of a friend's goodwill. + +He was clearly touched by Rose; and what was to prevent his making an +impression on her? To her sex he had always been singularly attractive. +Like his sister, he had all sorts of bright impulses and audacities +flashing and darting about him. He had a certain _hauteur_ with men, and +could play the aristocrat when he pleased, for all his philosophical +radicalism. But with women he was the most delightful mixture of +deference and high spirits. He loved the grace of them, the daintiness +of their dress, the softness of their voices. He would have done +anything to please them, anything to save them pain. At twenty-five, +when he was still 'Citizen Flaxman' to his college friends, and in the +first fervours of a poetic defiance of prejudice and convention, he had +married a gamekeeper's pretty daughter. She had died with her +child--died, almost, poor thing! of happiness and excitement--of the +over-greatness of Heaven's boon to her. Flaxman had adored her, and +death had tenderly embalmed a sentiment to which life might possibly +have been less kind. Since then he had lived in music, letters, and +society, refusing out of a certain fastidiousness to enter politics, but +welcomed and considered, wherever he went, tall, good-looking, +distinguished, one of the most agreeable and courted of men, and perhaps +the richest _parti_ in London. + +Still, in spite of it all, Langham held his ground--Langham would see it +out! And indeed Flaxman's footing with the beauty was by no means +clear--least of all to himself. She evidently liked him, but she +bantered him a good deal; she would not be the least subdued or dazzled +by his birth and wealth, or by those of his friends; and if she allowed +him to provide her with pleasures, she would hardly ever take his +advice, or knowingly consult his tastes. + +Meanwhile she tormented them both a good deal by the artistic +acquaintance she gathered about her. Mrs. Pierson's world, as we have +said, contained a good many dubious odds and ends, and she had handed +them all over to Rose. The Leyburns' growing intimacy with Mr. Flaxman +and his circle, and through them with the finer types of the artistic +life, would naturally and by degrees have carried them away somewhat +from this earlier circle if Rose would have allowed it. But she clung +persistently to its most unpromising specimens, partly out of a natural +generosity of feeling, but partly also for the sake of that opposition +her soul loved, her poor prickly soul, full under all her gaiety and +indifference of the most desperate doubt and soreness,--opposition to +Catherine, opposition to Mr. Flaxman, but, above all, opposition to +Langham. + +Flaxman could often avenge himself on her--or rather on the more +obnoxious members of her following--by dint of a faculty for light and +stinging repartee which would send her, flushed and biting her lip, to +have her laugh out in private. But Langham for a long time was +defenceless. Many of her friends in his opinion were simply pathological +curiosities--their vanity was so frenzied, their sensibilities so +morbidly developed. He felt a doctor's interest in them coupled with +more than a doctor's scepticism as to all they had to say about +themselves. But Rose would invite them, would assume a _quasi_-intimacy +with them; and Langham as well as everybody else had to put up with it. + +Even the trodden worm, however---- And there came a time when the +concentration of a good many different lines of feeling in Langham's +mind betrayed itself at last in a sharp and sudden openness. It began to +seem to _him_ that she was specially bent often on tormenting him by +these caprices of hers, and he vowed to himself finally, with an +outburst of irritation due in reality to a hundred causes, that he would +assert himself, that he would make an effort at any rate to save her +from her own follies. + +One afternoon, at a crowded musical party, to which he had come much +against his will, and only in obedience to a compulsion he dared not +analyse, she asked him in passing if he would kindly find Mr. MacFadden, +a bass singer, whose name stood next on the programme, and who was not +to be seen in the drawing-room. + +Langham searched the dining-room and the hall, and at last found Mr. +MacFadden--a fair, flabby, unwholesome youth--in the little study or +cloak-room, in a state of collapse, flanked by whisky and water, and +attended by two frightened maids, who handed over their charge to +Langham and fled. + +Then it appeared that the great man had been offended by a change in the +programme, which hurt his vanity, had withdrawn from the drawing-room on +the brink of hysterics, had called for spirits, which had been provided +for him with great difficulty by Mrs. Leyburn's maids, and was there +drinking himself into a state of rage and rampant dignity which would +soon have shown itself in a melodramatic return to the drawing-room, and +a public refusal to sing at all in a house where art had been outraged +in his person. + +Some of the old disciplinary instincts of the Oxford tutor awoke in +Langham at the sight of the creature, and, with a prompt sternness which +amazed himself, and nearly set MacFadden whimpering, he got rid of the +man, shut the hall door on him, and went back to the drawing-room. + +'Well?' said Rose in anxiety, coming up to him. + +'I have sent him away,' he said briefly, an eye of unusual quickness and +brightness looking down upon her; 'he was in no condition to sing. He +chose to be offended, apparently, because he was put out of his turn, +and has been giving the servants trouble.' + +Rose flushed deeply, and drew herself up with a look half trouble, half +defiance, at Langham. + +'I trust you will not ask him again,' he said, with the same decision. +'And if I might say so there are one or two people still here whom I +should like to see you exclude at the same time.' + +They had withdrawn into the bow window out of earshot of the rest of the +room. Langham's look turned significantly towards a group near the +piano. It contained one or two men whom he regarded as belonging to a +low type; men who, if it suited their purpose, would be quite ready to +tell or invent malicious stories of the girl they were now flattering, +and whose standards and instincts represented a coarser world than Rose +in reality knew anything about. + +Her eyes followed his. + +'I know,' she said petulantly, 'that you dislike artists. They are not +your world. They are mine.' + +'I dislike artists? What nonsense, too! To me personally these men's +ways don't matter in the least. They go their road and I mine. But I +deeply resent any danger of discomfort and annoyance to you!' + +He still stood frowning, a glow of indignant energy showing itself in +his attitude, his glance. She could not know that he was at that moment +vividly realising the drunken scene that might have taken place in her +presence if he had not succeeded in getting that man safely out of the +house. But she felt that he was angry, and mostly angry with her, and +there was something so piquant and unexpected in his anger! + +'I am afraid,' she said, with a queer sudden submissiveness, 'you have +been going through something very disagreeable. I am very sorry. Is it +my fault?' she added, with a whimsical flash of eye, half fun, half +serious. + +He could hardly believe his ears. + +'Yes, it is your fault, I think!' he answered her, amazed at his own +boldness. 'Not that _I_ was annoyed--Heavens! what does that +matter?--but that you and your mother and sister were very near an +unpleasant scene. You will not take advice, Miss Leyburn,--you will take +your own way in spite of what any one else can say or hint to you, and +some day you will expose yourself to annoyance when there is no one near +to protect you!' + +'Well, if so, it won't be for want of a mentor,' she said, dropping him +a mock curtsey. But her lip trembled under its smile, and her tone had +not lost its gentleness. + +At this moment Mr. Flaxman, who had gradually established himself as the +joint leader of these musical afternoons, came forward to summon Rose to +a quartette. He looked from one to the other, a little surprise +penetrating through his suavity of manner. + +'Am I interrupting you?' + +'Not at all,' said Rose; then, turning back to Langham, she said in a +hurried whisper: 'Don't say anything about the wretched man; it would +make mamma nervous. He shan't come here again.' + +Mr. Flaxman waited till the whisper was over, and then led her off, with +a change of manner which she immediately perceived, and which lasted for +the rest of the evening. + +Langham went home, and sat brooding over the fire. Her voice had not +been so kind, her look so womanly, for months. Had she been reading +_Shirley_, and would she have liked him to play Louis Moore? He went +into a fit of silent convulsive laughter as the idea occurred to him. + +Some secret instinct made him keep away from her for a time. At last, +one Friday afternoon, as he emerged from the Museum, where he had been +collating the MSS. of some obscure Alexandrian, the old craving returned +with added strength, and he turned involuntarily westward. + +An acquaintance of his, recently made in the course of work at the +Museum, a young Russian professor, ran after him, and walked with him. +Presently they passed a poster on the wall, which contained in enormous +letters the announcement of Madame Desforets's approaching visit to +London, a list of plays, and the dates of performances. + +The young Russian suddenly stopped and stood pointing at the +advertisement, with shaking derisive finger, his eyes aflame, the whole +man quivering with what looked like antagonism and hate. + +Then he broke into a fierce flood of French. Langham listened till they +had passed Piccadilly, passed the Park, and till the young _savant_ +turned southwards towards his Brompton lodgings. + +Then Langham slowly climbed Campden Hill, meditating. His thoughts were +an odd mixture of the things he had just heard, and of a scene at +Murewell long ago when a girl had denounced him for 'calumny.' + +At the door of Lerwick Gardens he was informed that Mrs. Leyburn was +upstairs with an attack of bronchitis. But the servant thought the young +ladies were at home. Would he come in? He stood irresolute a moment, +then went in on a pretext of 'inquiry.' + +The maid threw open the drawing-room door, and there was Rose sitting +well into the fire--for it was a raw February afternoon--with a book. + +She received him with all her old hard brightness. He was, indeed, +instantly sorry that he had made his way in. Tyrant! was she displeased +because he had slipped his chain for rather longer than usual? + +However, he sat down, delivered his book, and they talked first about +her mother's illness. They had been anxious, she said, but the doctor, +who had just taken his departure, had now completely reassured them. + +'Then you will be able probably after all to put in an appearance at +Lady Charlotte's this evening?' he asked her. + +The omnivorous Lady Charlotte of course had made acquaintance with him +in the Leyburns' drawing-room, as she did with everybody who crossed her +path, and three days before he had received a card from her for this +evening. + +'Oh yes! But I have had to miss a rehearsal this afternoon. That concert +at Searle House is becoming a great nuisance.' + +'It will be a brilliant affair, I suppose. Princes on one side of +you--and Albani on the other. I see they have given you the most +conspicuous part as violinist.' + +'Yes,' she said with a little satirical tightening of the lip. 'Yes--I +suppose I ought to be much flattered.' + +'Of course,' he said, smiling, but embarrassed. 'To many people you must +be at this moment one of the most enviable persons in the world. A +delightful art--and every opportunity to make it tell!' + +There was a pause. She looked into the fire. + +'I don't know whether it is a delightful art,' she said presently, +stifling a little yawn. 'I believe I am getting very tired of London. +Sometimes I think I shouldn't be very sorry to find myself suddenly +spirited back to Burwood!' + +Langham gave vent to some incredulous interjection. He had apparently +surprised her in a fit of _ennui_ which was rare with her. + +'Oh no, not yet!' she said suddenly, with a return of animation. 'Madame +Desforets comes next week, and I am to see her.' She drew herself up and +turned a beaming face upon him. Was there a shaft of mischief in her +eye? He could not tell. The firelight was perplexing. + +'You are to see her?' he said slowly. 'Is she coming here?' + +'I hope so. Mrs. Pierson is to bring her. I want mamma to have the +amusement of seeing her. My artistic friends are a kind of tonic to +her--they excite her so much. She regards them as a sort of show--much +as you do, in fact, only in a more charitable fashion.' + +But he took no notice of what she was saying. + +'Madame Desforets is coming here?' he sharply repeated, bending forward, +a curious accent in his tone. + +'Yes!' she replied, with apparent surprise. Then with a careless smile: +'Oh, I remember when we were at Murewell, you were exercised that we +should know her. Well, Mr. Langham, I told you then that you were only +echoing unworthy gossip. I am in the same mind still. I have seen her, +and you haven't. To me she is the greatest actress in the world, and an +ill-used woman to boot!' + +Her tone had warmed with every sentence. It struck him that she had +wilfully brought up the topic--that it gave her pleasure to quarrel with +him. + +He put down his hat deliberately, got up, and stood with his back to the +fire. She looked up at him curiously. But the dark regular face was +almost hidden from her. + +'It is strange,' he said slowly, 'very strange--that you should have +told me this at this moment! Miss Leyburn, a great deal of the truth +about Madame Desforets I could neither tell, nor could you hear. There +are charges against her proved in open court, again and again, which I +could not even mention in your presence. But one thing I can speak of. +Do you know the story of the sister at St. Petersburg?' + +'I know no stories against Madame Desforets,' said Rose loftily, her +quickened breath responding to the energy of his tone. 'I have always +chosen not to know them.' + +'The newspapers were full of this particular story just before +Christmas. I should have thought it must have reached you.' + +'I did not see it,' she replied stiffly; 'and I cannot see what good +purpose is to be served by your repeating it to me, Mr. Langham.' + +Langham could have smiled at her petulance, if he had not for once been +determined and in earnest. + +'You will let me tell it, I hope?' he said quietly. 'I will tell it so +that it shall not offend your ears. As it happens, I myself thought it +incredible at the time. But, by an odd coincidence, it has just this +afternoon been repeated to me by a man who was an eyewitness of part of +it.' + +Rose was silent. Her attitude was _hauteur_ itself, but she made no +further active opposition. + +'Three months ago,' he began, speaking with some difficulty, but still +with a suppressed force of feeling which amazed his hearer, 'Madame +Desforets was acting in St. Petersburg. She had with her a large +company, and amongst them her own young sister, Elise Romey, a girl of +eighteen. This girl had been always kept away from Madame Desforets by +her parents, who had never been sufficiently consoled by their eldest +daughter's artistic success for the infamy of her life.' + +Rose started indignantly. Langham gave her no time to speak. + +'Elise Romey, however, had developed a passion for the stage. Her +parents were respectable--and you know young girls in France are brought +up strictly. She knew next to nothing of her sister's escapades. But she +knew that she was held to be the greatest actress in Europe--the +photographs in the shops told her that she was beautiful. She conceived +a romantic passion for the woman whom she had last seen when she was a +child of five, and actuated partly by this hungry affection, partly by +her own longing wish to become an actress, she escaped from home and +joined Madame Desforets in the South of France. Madame Desforets seems +at first to have been pleased to have her. The girl's adoration pleased +her vanity. Her presence with her gave her new opportunities of posing. +I believe,' and Langham gave a little dry laugh, 'they were photographed +together at Marseilles with their arms round each other's necks, and the +photograph had an immense success. However, on the way to St. +Petersburg, difficulties arose. Elise was pretty, in a _blonde_ childish +way, and she caught the attention of the _jeune premier_ of the company, +a man'--the speaker became somewhat embarrassed--'whom Madame Desforets +seems to have regarded as her particular property. There were scenes at +different towns on the journey. Elise became frightened--wanted to go +home. But the elder sister, having begun tormenting her, seems to have +determined to keep her hold on her, as a cat keeps and tortures a +mouse--mainly for the sake of annoying the man of whom she was jealous. +They arrived at St. Petersburg in the depth of winter. The girl was worn +out with travelling, unhappy, and ill. One night in Madame Desforets's +apartment there was a supper party, and after it a horrible quarrel. No +one exactly knows what happened. But towards twelve o'clock that night +Madame Desforets turned her young sister in evening dress, a light shawl +round her, out into the snowy streets of St. Petersburg, barred the door +behind her, and revolver in hand dared the wretched man who had caused +the _fracas_ to follow her.' + +Rose sat immovable. She had grown pale, but the firelight was not +revealing. + +Langham turned away from her towards the blaze, holding out his hands to +it mechanically. + +'The poor child,' he said, after a pause, in a lower voice, 'wandered +about for some hours. It was a frightful night--the great capital was +quite strange to her. She was insulted--fled this way and that--grew +benumbed with cold and terror, and was found unconscious in the early +morning under the archway of a house some two miles from her sister's +lodgings.' + +There was a dead silence. Then Rose drew a long quivering breath. + +'I do not believe it!' she said passionately. 'I cannot believe it!' + +'It was amply proved at the time,' said Langham drily, 'though of course +Madame Desforets tried to put her own colour on it. But I told you I had +private information. On one of the floors of the house where Elise Romey +was picked up, lived a young university professor. He is editing an +important Greek text, and has lately had business at the Museum. I made +friends with him there. He walked home with me this afternoon, saw the +announcement of Madame Desforets's coming, and poured out the story. He +and his wife nursed the unfortunate girl with devotion. She lived just a +week, and died of inflammation of the lungs. I never in my life heard +anything so pitiful as his description of her delirium, her terror, her +appeals, her shivering misery of cold.' + +There was a pause. + +'She is not a woman,' he said presently, between his teeth. 'She is a +wild beast.' + +Still there was silence, and still he held out his hand to the flame +which Rose too was staring at. At last he turned round. + +'I have told you a shocking story,' he said hurriedly. 'Perhaps I ought +not to have done it. But, as you sat there talking so lightly, so gaily, +it suddenly became to me utterly intolerable that that woman should ever +sit here in this room--talk to you--call you by your name--laugh with +you--touch your hand! Not even your wilfulness shall carry you so +far--you _shall_ not do it!' + +He hardly knew what he said. He was driven on by a passionate sense of +physical repulsion to the notion of any contact between her pure fair +youth and something malodorous and corrupt. And there was besides a wild +unique excitement in claiming for once to stay--to control her. + +Rose lifted her head slowly. The fire was bright. He saw the tears in +her eyes, tears of intolerable pity for another girl's awful story. But +through the tears something gleamed--a kind of exultation--the +exultation which the magician feels when he has called spirits from the +vasty deep, and after long doubt and difficult invocation they rise at +last before his eyes. + +'I will never see her again,' she said in a low wavering voice, but she +too was hardly conscious of her own words. Their looks were on each +other; the ruddy capricious light touched her glowing cheeks, her +straight-lined grace, her white hand. Suddenly from the gulf of +another's misery into which they had both been looking there had sprung +up, by the strange contrariety of human things, a heat and intoxication +of feeling, wrapping them round, blotting out the rest of the world from +them like a golden mist. 'Be always thus!' her parted lips, her liquid +eyes were saying to him. His breath seemed to fail him; he was lost in +bewilderment. + +There were sounds outside--Catherine's voice. He roused himself with a +supreme effort. + +'To-night--at Lady Charlotte's?' + +'To-night,' she said, and held out her hand. + +A sudden madness seized him--he stooped--his lips touched it--it was +hastily drawn away, and the door opened. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +'In the first place, my dear aunt,' said Mr. Flaxman, throwing himself +back in his chair in front of Lady Charlotte's drawing-room fire, 'you +may spare your admonitions, because it is becoming more and more clear +to me that, whatever my sentiments may be, Miss Leyburn never gives a +serious thought to me.' + +He turned to look at his companion over his shoulder. His tone and +manner were perfectly gay, and Lady Charlotte was puzzled by him. + +'Stuff and nonsense!' replied the lady with her usual emphasis; 'I never +flatter you, Hugh, and I don't mean to begin now, but it would be mere +folly not to recognise that you have advantages which must tell on the +mind of any girl in Miss Leyburns position.' + +Hugh Flaxman rose, and, standing before the fire with his hands in his +pockets, made what seemed to be a close inspection of his irreproachable +trouser-knees. + +'I am sorry for your theory, Aunt Charlotte,' he said, still stooping, +'but Miss Leyburn doesn't care twopence about my advantages.' + +'Very proper of you to say so,' returned Lady Charlotte sharply; 'the +remark, however, my good sir, does more credit to your heart than your +head.' + +'In the next place,' he went on undisturbed, 'why you should have done +your best this whole winter to throw Miss Leyburn and me together, if +you meant in the end to oppose my marrying her, I don't quite see.' + +He looked up smiling. Lady Charlotte reddened ever so slightly. + +'You know my weaknesses,' she said presently, with an effrontery which +delighted her nephew. 'She is my latest novelty, she excites me, I can't +do without her. As to you, I can't remember that you wanted much +encouragement, but, I acknowledge, after all these years of +resistance--resistance to my most legitimate efforts to dispose of +you--there was a certain piquancy in seeing you caught at last!' + +'Upon my word!' he said, throwing back his head with a not very cordial +laugh, in which, however, his aunt joined. She was sitting opposite to +him, her powerful loosely-gloved hands crossed over the rich velvet of +her dress, her fair large face and grayish hair surmounted by a mighty +cap, as vigorous, shrewd, and individual a type of English middle age as +could be found. The room behind her and the second and third +drawing-rooms were brilliantly lighted. Mr. Wynnstay was enjoying a +cigar in peace in the smoking-room, while his wife and nephew were +awaiting the arrival of the evening's guests upstairs. + +Lady Charlotte's mind had been evidently much perturbed by the +conversation with her nephew of which we are merely describing the +latter half. She was labouring under an uncomfortable sense of being +hoist with her own petard--an uncomfortable memory of a certain warning +of her husband's, delivered at Murewell. + +'And now,' said Mr. Flaxman, 'having confessed in so many words that you +have done your best to bring me up to the fence, will you kindly +recapitulate the arguments why in your opinion I should not jump it?' + +'Society, amusement, flirtation, are one thing,' she replied with +judicial imperativeness, 'marriage is another. In these democratic days +we must know everybody; we should only marry our equals.' + +The instant, however, the words were out of her mouth, she regretted +them. Mr. Flaxman's expression changed. + +'I do not agree with you,' he said calmly, 'and you know I do not. You +could not, I imagine, have relied much upon _that_ argument.' + +'Good gracious, Hugh!' cried Lady Charlotte crossly; 'you talk as if I +were really the old campaigner some people suppose me to be. I have been +amusing myself--I have liked to see you amused. And it is only the last +few weeks since you have begun to devote yourself so tremendously, that +I have come to take the thing seriously at all. I confess, if you like, +that I have got you into the scrape--now I want to get you out of it! I +am not thin-skinned, but I hate family unpleasantnesses--and you know +what the duke will say.' + +'The duke be--translated!' said Flaxman coolly. 'Nothing of what you +have said or could say on this point, my dear aunt, has the smallest +weight with me. But Providence has been kinder to you and the duke than +you deserve. Miss Leyburn does not care for me, and she does care--or I +am very much mistaken--for somebody else.' + +He pronounced the words deliberately, watching their effect upon her. + +'What, that Oxford nonentity, Mr. Langham, the Elsmeres' friend? +Ridiculous! What attraction could a man of that type have for a girl of +hers?' + +'I am not bound to supply an answer to that question,' replied her +nephew. 'However, he is not a nonentity. Far from it! Ten years ago, +when I was leaving Cambridge, he was certainly one of the most +distinguished of the young Oxford tutors. + +'Another instance of what university reputation is worth!' said Lady +Charlotte scornfully. It was clear that even in the case of a beauty +whom she thought it beneath him to marry, she was not pleased to see her +nephew ousted by the _force majeure_ of a rival--and that a rival whom +she regarded as an utter nobody, having neither marketable eccentricity, +nor family, nor social brilliance to recommend him. + +Flaxman understood her perplexity and watched her with critical amused +eyes. + +'I should like to know,' he said presently, with a curious slowness and +suavity, 'I should greatly like to know why you asked him here +to-night?' + +'You know perfectly well that I should ask anybody--a convict, a +crossing-sweeper--if I happened to be half an hour in the same room with +him!' + +Flaxman laughed. + +'Well, it may be convenient to-night,' he said reflectively. 'What are +we to do--some thought-reading?' + +'Yes. It isn't a crush. I have only asked about thirty or forty people. +Mr. Denman is to manage it.' + +She mentioned an amateur thought-reader greatly in request at the +moment. + +Flaxman cogitated for a while and then propounded a little plan to his +aunt, to which she, after some demur, agreed. + +'I want to make a few notes,' he said drily, when it was arranged; 'I +should be glad to satisfy myself.' + +When the Misses Leyburn were announced, Rose, though the younger, came +in first. She always took the lead by a sort of natural right, and +Agnes never dreamt of protesting. To-night the sisters were in white. +Some soft creamy stuff was folded and draped about Rose's slim shapely +figure in such a way as to bring out all its charming roundness and +grace. Her neck and arms bore the challenge of the dress victoriously. +Her red-gold hair gleamed in the light of Lady Charlotte's innumerable +candles. A knot of dusky blue feathers on her shoulder, and a Japanese +fan of the same colour, gave just that touch of purpose and art which +the spectator seems to claim as the tribute answering to his praise in +the dress of a young girl. She moved with perfect self-possession, +distributing a few smiling looks to the people she knew as she advanced +towards Lady Charlotte. Any one with a discerning eye could have seen +that she was in that stage of youth when a beautiful woman is like a +statue to which the master is giving the finishing touches. Life, the +sculptor, had been at work upon her, refining here, softening there, +planing away awkwardness, emphasising grace, disengaging as it were, +week by week, and month by month, all the beauty of which the original +conception was capable. And the process is one attended always by a glow +and sparkle, a kind of effluence of youth and pleasure, which makes +beauty more beautiful and grace more graceful. + +The little murmur and rustle of persons turning to look, which had +already begun to mark her entrance into a room, surrounded Rose as she +walked up to Lady Charlotte. Mr. Flaxman, who had been standing absently +silent, woke up directly she appeared, and went to greet her before his +aunt. + +'You failed us at rehearsal,' he said with smiling reproach; 'we were +all at sixes and sevens.' + +'I had a sick mother, unfortunately, who kept me at home. Lady +Charlotte, Catherine couldn't come. Agnes and I are alone in the world. +Will you chaperon us?' + +'I don't know whether I will accept the responsibility to-night--in that +new gown,' replied Lady Charlotte grimly, putting up her eyeglass to +look at it and the wearer. Rose bore the scrutiny with a light smiling +silence, even though she knew Mr. Flaxman was looking too. + +'On the contrary,' she said, 'one always feels so particularly good and +prim in a new frock.' + +'Really? I should have thought it one of Satan's likeliest moments,' +said Flaxman, laughing--his eyes, however, the while saying quite other +things to her, as they finished their inspection of her dress. + +Lady Charlotte threw a sharp glance first at him and then at Rose's +smiling ease, before she hurried off to other guests. + +'I have made a muddle as usual,' she said to herself in disgust, +'perhaps even a worse one than I thought!' + +Whatever might be Hugh Flaxman's state of mind, however, he never showed +greater self-possession than on this particular evening. + +A few minutes after Rose's entry he introduced her for the first time to +his sister Lady Helen. The Varleys had only just come up to town for the +opening of Parliament, and Lady Helen had come to-night to Martin +Street, all ardour to see Hugh's new adoration, and the girl whom all +the world was beginning to talk about--both as a beauty and as an +artist. She rushed at Rose, if any word so violent can be applied to +anything so light and airy as Lady Helen's movements, caught the girl's +hands in both hers, and, gazing up at her with undisguised admiration, +said to her the prettiest, daintiest, most effusive things possible. +Rose--who with all her lithe shapeliness, looked over-tall and even a +trifle stiff beside the tiny bird-like Lady Helen--took the advances of +Hugh Flaxman's sister with a pretty flush of flattered pride. She looked +down at the small radiant creature with soft and friendly eyes, and Hugh +Flaxman stood by, so far well pleased. + +Then he went off to fetch Mr. Denman, the hero of the evening, to be +introduced to her. While he was away, Agnes, who was behind her sister, +saw Rose's eyes wandering from Lady Helen to the door, restlessly +searching and then returning. + +Presently through the growing crowd round the entrance Agnes spied a +well-known form emerging. + +'Mr. Langham! But Rose never told me he was to be here to-night, and how +_dreadful_ he looks!' + +Agnes was so startled that her eyes followed Langham closely across the +room. Rose had seen him at once; and they had greeted each other across +the crowd. Agnes was absorbed, trying to analyse what had struck her so. +The face was always melancholy, always pale, but to-night it was +ghastly, and from the whiteness of cheek and brow, the eyes, the +jet-black hair stood out in intense and disagreeable relief. She would +have remarked on it to Rose, but that Rose's attention was claimed by +the young thought-reader, Mr. Denman, whom Mr. Flaxman had brought up. +Mr. Denman was a fair-haired young Hercules, whose tremulous agitated +manner contrasted oddly with his athlete's looks. Among other magnetisms +he was clearly open to the magnetism of women, and he stayed talking to +Rose, staring furtively at her the while from under his heavy +lids,--much longer than the girl thought fair. + +'Have you seen any experiments in the working of this new force before?' +he asked her, with a solemnity which sat oddly on his commonplace +bearded face. + +'Oh yes!' she said flippantly. 'We have tried it sometimes. It is very +good fun.' + +He drew himself up. 'Not _fun_,' he said impressively, 'not fun. +Thought-reading wants seriousness; the most tremendous things depend +upon it. If established it will revolutionise our whole views of life. +Even a Huxley could not deny that!' + +She studied him with mocking eyes. 'Do you imagine this party to-night +looks very serious?' + +His face fell. + +'One can seldom get people to take it scientifically,' he admitted, +sighing. Rose, impatiently, thought him a most preposterous young man. +Why was he not cricketing or shooting or exploring, or using the muscles +Nature had given him so amply, to some decent practical purpose, instead +of making a business out of ruining his own nerves and other people's +night after night in hot drawing-rooms? And when would he go away? + +'Come, Mr. Denman,' said Flaxman, laying hands upon him; 'the audience +is about collected, I think. Ah, there you are!' and he gave Langham a +cool greeting. 'Have you seen anything yet of these fashionable dealings +with the devil?' + +'Nothing. Are you a believer?' + +Flaxman shrugged his shoulders. 'I never refuse an experiment of any +kind,' he added with an odd change of voice. 'Come, Denman.' + +And the two went off. Langham came to a stand beside Rose, while old +Lord Rupert, as jovial as ever, and bubbling over with gossip about the +Queen's Speech, appropriated Lady Helen, who was the darling of all +elderly men. + +They did not speak. Rose sent him a ray from eyes full of a new divine +shyness. He smiled gently in answer to it, and full of her own young +emotion, and of the effort to conceal it from all the world, she noticed +none of that change which had struck Agnes. + +And all the while, if she could have penetrated the man's silence! An +hour before this moment Langham had vowed that nothing should take him +to Lady Charlotte's that night. And yet here he was, riveted to her +side, alive like any normal human being to every detail of her +loveliness, shaken to his inmost being by the intoxicating message of +her look, of the transformation which had passed in an instant over the +teasing difficult creature of the last few months. + +At Murewell his chagrin had been _not_ to feel, _not_ to struggle, to +have been cheated out of experience. Well, here _is_ the experience in +good earnest! And Langham is wrestling with it for dear life. And how +little the exquisite child beside him knows of it, or of the man on whom +she is spending her first wilful passion! She stands strangely exulting +in her own strange victory over a life, a heart, which had defied and +eluded her. The world throbs and thrills about her, the crowd beside her +is all unreal, the air is full of whisper, of romance. + +The thought-reading followed its usual course. A murder and its +detection were given in dumb show. Then it was the turn of +card-guessing, bank-note-finding, and the various other forms of +telepathic hide and seek. Mr. Flaxman superintended them all, his +restless eye wandering every other minute to the farther drawing-room in +which the lights had been lowered, catching there always the same patch +of black and white,--Rose's dress and the dark form beside her. + +'Are you convinced? Do you believe?' said Rose, merrily looking up at +her companion. + +'In telepathy? Well--so far--I have not got beyond the delicacy and +perfection of Mr. Denman's--muscular sensation. So much I am sure of!' + +'Oh, but your scepticism is ridiculous!' she said gaily. 'We _know_ that +some people have an extraordinary power over others.' + +'Yes, that certainly we know!' he answered, his voice dropping, an odd +strained note in it. 'I grant you that.' + +She trembled deliciously. Her eyelids fell. They stood together, +conscious only of each other. + +'Now,' said Mr. Denman, advancing to the doorway between the two +drawing-rooms, 'I have done all I can--I am exhausted. But let me beg of +you all to go on with some experiments amongst yourselves. Every fresh +discovery of this power in a new individual is a gain to science. I +believe about one in ten has some share of it. Mr. Flaxman and I will +arrange everything, if any one will volunteer?' + +The audience broke up into groups, laughing, chatting, suggesting this +and that. Presently Lady Charlotte's loud dictatorial voice made itself +heard, as she stood eyeglass in hand looking round the circle of her +guests. + +'Somebody must venture--we are losing time.' + +Then the eyeglass stopped at Rose, who was now sitting tall and radiant +on the sofa, her blue fan across her white knees. 'Miss Leyburn--you are +always public-spirited--will you be victimised for the good of science?' + +The girl got up with a smile. + +'And Mr. Langham--will you see what you can do with Miss Leyburn? +Hugh--we all choose her task, don't we--then Mr. Langham wills?' + +Flaxman came up to explain. Langham had turned to Rose--a wild fury with +Lady Charlotte and the whole affair sweeping through him. But there was +no time to demur; that judicial eye was on them; the large figure and +towering cap bent towards him. Refusal was impossible. + +'Command me!' he said with a sudden straightening of the form and a +flush on the pale cheek. 'I am afraid Miss Leyburn will find me a very +bad partner.' + +'Well, now then!' said Flaxman; 'Miss Leyburn, will you please go down +into the library while we settle what you are to do!' + +She went, and he held the door open for her. But she passed out +unconscious of him--rosy, confused, her eyes bent on the ground. + +'Now, then, what shall Miss Leyburn do?' asked Lady Charlotte in the +same loud emphatic tone. + +'If I might suggest something quite different from anything that has +been yet tried,' said Mr. Flaxman, 'suppose we require Miss Leyburn to +kiss the hand of the little marble statue of Hope in the far +drawing-room. What do you say, Langham?' + +'What you please!' said Langham, moving up to him. A glance passed +between the two men. In Langham's there was a hardly sane antagonism and +resentment, in Flaxman's an excited intelligence. + +'Now then, said Flaxman coolly, 'fix your mind steadily on what Miss +Leyburn is to do--you must take her hand--but except in thought, you +must carefully follow and not lead her. Shall I call her?' + +Langham abruptly assented. He had a passionate sense of being +watched--tricked. Why were he and she to be made a spectacle for this +man and his friends! A mad irrational indignation surged through him. + +Then she was led in blindfolded, one hand stretched out feeling the air +in front of her. The circle of people drew back. Mr. Flaxman and Mr. +Denman prepared, note-book in hand, to watch the experiment. Langham +moved desperately forward. + +But the instant her soft trembling hand touched his, as though by +enchantment, the surrounding scene, the faces, the lights, were blotted +out from him. He forgot his anger, he forgot everything but her and this +thing she was to do. He had her in his grasp--he was the man, the +master--and what enchanting readiness to yield in the swaying pliant +form! In the distance far away gleamed the statue of Hope, a child on +tiptoe, one outstretched arm just visible from where he stood. + +There was a moment's silent expectation. Every eye was riveted on the +two figures--on the dark handsome man--on the blindfolded girl. + +At last Rose began to move gently forward. It was a strange wavering +motion. The breath came quickly through her slightly parted lips; her +bright colour was ebbing. She was conscious of nothing but the grasp in +which her hand was held--otherwise her mind seemed a blank. Her state +during the next few seconds was not unlike the state of some one under +the partial influence of an anaesthetic; a benumbing grip was laid on all +her faculties; and she knew nothing of how she moved or where she was +going. + +Suddenly the trance cleared away. It might have lasted half an hour or +five seconds, for all she knew. But she was standing beside a small +marble statue in the farthest drawing-room, and her lips had on them a +slight sense of chill, as though they had just been laid to something +cold. + +She pulled off the handkerchief from her eyes. Above her was Langham's +face, a marvellous glow and animation in every line of it. + +'Have I done it?' she asked in a tremulous whisper. + +For the moment her self-control was gone. She was still bewildered. + +He nodded, smiling. + +'I am so glad,' she said, still in the same quick whisper, gazing at +him. There was the most adorable _abandon_ in her whole look and +attitude. He could but just restrain himself from taking her in his +arms, and for one bright flashing instant each saw nothing but the +other. + +The heavy curtain which had partially hidden the door of the little +old-fashioned powder-closet as they approached it, and through which +they had swept without heeding, was drawn back with a rattle. + +'She has done it! Hurrah!' cried Mr. Flaxman. 'What a rush that last +was, Miss Leyburn! You left us all behind.' + +Rose turned to him, still dazed, drawing her hand across her eyes. A +rush? She had known nothing about it! + +Mr. Flaxman turned and walked back, apparently to report to his aunt, +who, with Lady Helen, had been watching the experiment from the main +drawing-room. His face was a curious mixture of gravity and the keenest +excitement. The gravity was mostly sharp compunction. He had satisfied a +passionate curiosity, but in the doing of it he had outraged certain +instincts of breeding and refinement which were now revenging +themselves. + +'Did she do it exactly?' said Lady Helen eagerly. + +'Exactly,' he said, standing still. + +Lady Charlotte looked at him significantly. But he would not see her +look. + +'Lady Charlotte, where is my sister?' said Rose, coming up from the back +room, looking now nearly as white as her dress. + +It appeared that Agnes had just been carried off by a lady who lived on +Campden Hill close to the Leyburns, and who had been obliged to go at +the beginning of the last experiment. Agnes, torn between her interest +in what was going on and her desire to get back to her mother, had at +last hurriedly accepted this Mrs. Sherwood's offer of a seat in her +carriage, imagining that her sister would want to stay a good deal +later, and relying on Lady Charlotte's promise that she should be safely +put into a hansom. + +'I must go,' said Rose, putting her hand to her head. 'How tiring this +is! How long did it take, Mr. Flaxman?' + +'Exactly three minutes,' he said, his gaze fixed upon her with an +expression that only Lady Helen noticed. + +'So little! Good-night, Lady Charlotte!' and giving her hand first to +her hostess then to Mr. Flaxman's bewildered sister, she moved away into +the crowd. + +'Hugh, of course you are going down with her?' exclaimed Lady Charlotte +under her breath. 'You must. I promised to see her safely off the +premises.' + +He stood immovable. Lady Helen with a reproachful look made a step +forward, but he caught her arm. + +'Don't spoil sport,' he said, in a tone which, amid the hum of +discussion caused by the experiment, was heard only by his aunt and +sister. + +They looked at him--the one amazed, the other grimly observant--and +caught a slight significant motion of the head towards Langham's distant +figure. + +Langham came up and made his farewells. As he turned his back, Lady +Helen's large astonished eyes followed him to the door. + +'Oh, Hugh!' was all she could say as they came back to her brother. + +'Never mind, Nellie,' he whispered, touched by the bewildered sympathy +of her look; 'I will tell you all about it to-morrow. I have not been +behaving well, and am not particularly pleased with myself. But for her +it is all right. Poor, pretty little thing!' + +And he walked away into the thick of the conversation. + +Downstairs the hall was already full of people waiting for their +carriages. Langham, hurrying down, saw Rose coming out of the +cloak-room, muffled up in brown furs, a pale child-like fatigue in her +looks which set his heart beating faster than ever. + +'Miss Leyburn, how are you going home?' + +'Will you ask for a hansom, please?' + +'Take my arm,' he said, and she clung to him through the crush till they +reached the door. + +Nothing but private carriages were in sight. The street seemed blocked, +a noisy tumult of horses and footmen and shouting men with lanterns. +Which of them suggested, 'Shall we walk a few steps?' At any rate, here +they were, out in the wind and the darkness, every step carrying them +farther away from that moving patch of noise and light behind. + +'We shall find a cab at once in Park Lane,' he said. 'Are you warm?' + +'Perfectly.' + +A fur hood fitted round her face, to which the colour was coming back. +She held her cloak tightly round her, and her little feet, fairly well +shod, slipped in and out on the dry frosty pavement. + +Suddenly they passed a huge unfinished house, the building of which was +being pushed on by electric light. The great walls, ivory white in the +glare, rose into the purply-blue of the starry February sky, and as they +passed within the power of the lamps, each saw with noonday distinctness +every line and feature in the other's face. They swept on--the night, +with its alternations of flame and shadow, an unreal and enchanted world +about them. A space of darkness succeeded the space of daylight. Behind +them in the distance was the sound of hammers and workmen's voices; +before them the dim trees of the park. Not a human being was in sight. +London seemed to exist to be the mere dark friendly shelter of this +wandering of theirs. + +A blast of wind blew her cloak out of her grasp. But before she could +close it again, an arm was flung around her. She could not speak or +move, she stood passive, conscious only of the strangeness of the wintry +wind, and of this warm breast against which her cheek was laid. + +'Oh, stay there!' a voice said close to her ear. 'Rest there--pale tired +child--pale tired little child!' + +That moment seemed to last an eternity. He held her close, cherishing +and protecting her from the cold--not kissing her--till at length she +looked up with bright eyes, shining through happy tears. + +'Are you sure at last?' she said, strangely enough, speaking out of the +far depths of her own thought to his. + +'Sure!' he said, his expression changing. 'What can I be sure of? I am +sure that I am not worth your loving, sure that I am poor, +insignificant, obscure, that if you give yourself to me you will be +miserably throwing yourself away!' + +She looked at him, still smiling, a white sorceress weaving spells about +him in the darkness. He drew her lightly gloved hand through his arm, +holding the fragile fingers close in his, and they moved on. + +'Do you know,' he repeated--a tone of intense melancholy replacing the +tone of passion,--'how little I have to give you?' + +'I know,' she answered, her face turned shyly away from him, her words +coming from under the fur hood which had fallen forward a little. 'I +know that--that--you are not rich, that you distrust yourself, that----' + +'Oh, hush,' he said, and his voice was full of pain. 'You know so +little; let me paint myself. I have lived alone, for myself, in myself, +till sometimes there seems to be hardly anything left in me to love or +be loved; nothing but a brain, a machine that exists only for certain +selfish ends. My habits are the tyrants of years; and at Murewell, +though I loved you there, they were strong enough to carry me away from +you. There is something paralysing in me, which is always forbidding me +to feel, to will. Sometimes I think it is an actual physical +disability--the horror that is in me of change, of movement, of effort. +Can you bear with me? Can you be poor? Can you live a life of monotony? +Oh, impossible!' he broke out, almost putting her hand away from him. +'You, who ought to be a queen of this world, for whom everything bright +and brilliant is waiting if you will but stretch out your hand to it. It +is a crime--an infamy--that I should be speaking to you like this!' + +Rose raised her head. A passing light shone upon her. She was trembling +and pale again, but her eyes were unchanged. + +'No, no,' she said wistfully; 'not if you love me.' + +He hung above her, an agony of feeling in the fine rigid face, of which +the beautiful features and surfaces were already worn and blanched by +the life of thought. What possessed him was not so much distrust of +circumstance as doubt, hideous doubt, of himself, of this very passion +beating within him. She saw nothing, meanwhile, but the +self-depreciation which she knew so well in him, and against which her +love in its rash ignorance and generosity cried out. + +'You will not say you love me!' she cried, with hurrying breath. 'But I +know--I know--you do.' + +Then her courage sinking, ashamed, blushing, once more turning away from +him--'At least, if you don't, I am very--very--unhappy.' + +The soft words flew through his blood. For an instant he felt himself +saved, like Faust,--saved by the surpassing moral beauty of one moment's +impression. That she should need him, that his life should matter to +hers! They were passing the garden wall of a great house. In the deepest +shadow of it, he stooped suddenly and kissed her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +Langham parted with Rose at the corner of Martin Street. She would not +let him take her any farther. + +'I will say nothing,' she whispered to him, as he put her into a passing +hansom, wrapping her cloak warmly round her, 'till I see you again. +To-morrow?' + +'To-morrow morning,' he said, waving his hand to her, and in another +instant he was facing the north wind alone. + +He walked on fast towards Beaumont Street, but by the time he reached +his destination midnight had struck. He made his way into his room where +the fire was still smouldering, and striking a light, sank into his +large reading chair, beside which the volumes used in the afternoon lay +littered on the floor. + +He was suddenly penetrated with the cold of the night, and hung +shivering over the few embers which still glowed. What had happened to +him? In this room, in this chair, the self-forgetting excitement of that +walk, scarcely half an hour old, seems to him already long +passed--incredible almost. + +And yet the brain was still full of images, the mind still full of a +hundred new impressions. That fair head against his breast, those soft +confiding words, those yielding lips. Ah! it is the poor, silent, +insignificant student that has conquered. It is he, not the successful +man of the world, that has held that young and beautiful girl in his +arms, and heard from her the sweetest and humblest confession of love. +Fate can have neither wit nor conscience to have ordained it so; but +fate has so ordained it. Langham takes note of his victory, takes dismal +note also that the satisfaction of it has already half departed. + +So the great moment has come and gone! The one supreme experience which +life and his own will had so far rigidly denied him, is his. He has felt +the torturing thrill of passion--he has evoked such an answer as all +men might envy him,--and fresh from Rose's kiss, from Rose's beauty, the +strange maimed soul falls to a pitiless analysis of his passion, her +response! One moment he is at her feet in a voiceless trance of +gratitude and tenderness; the next--is nothing what it promises to +be?--and has the boon already, now that he has it in his grasp, lost +some of its beauty, just as the sea-shell drawn out of the water, where +its lovely iridescence tempted eye and hand, loses half its fairy charm? + +The night wore on. Outside an occasional cab or cart would rattle over +the stones of the street, an occasional voice or step would penetrate +the thin walls of the house, bringing a shock of sound into that silent +upper room. Nothing caught Langham's ear. He was absorbed in the +dialogue which was to decide his life. + +Opposite to him, as it seemed, there sat a spectral reproduction of +himself, his true self, with whom he held a long and ghastly argument. + +'But I love her!--I love her! A little courage--a little effort--and I +too can achieve what other men achieve. I have gifts, great gifts. Mere +contact with her, the mere necessities of the situation, will drive me +back to life, teach me how to live normally, like other men. I have not +forced her love--it has been a free gift. Who can blame me if I take it, +if I cling to it, as the man freezing in a crevasse clutches the rope +thrown to him?' + +To which the pale spectre self said scornfully-- + +'_Courage_ and _effort_ may as well be dropped out of your vocabulary. +They are words that you have no use for. Replace them by two +others--_habit_ and _character_. Slave as you are of habit, of the +character you have woven for yourself out of years of deliberate +living--what wild unreason to imagine that love can unmake, can +recreate! What you are, you are to all eternity. Bear your own burden, +but for God's sake beguile no other human creature into trusting you +with theirs!' + +'But she loves me! Impossible that I should crush and tear so kind, so +warm a heart! Poor child--poor child! I have played on her pity. I have +won all she had to give. And now to throw her gift back in her face--oh +monstrous--oh inhuman!' and the cold drops stood on his forehead. + +But the other self was inexorable. 'You have acted as you were bound to +act--as any man may be expected to act in whom will and manhood and true +human kindness are dying out, poisoned by despair and the tyranny of the +critical habit. But at least do not add another crime to the first. What +in God's name have you to offer a creature of such claims, such +ambitions? You are poor--you must go back to Oxford--you must take up +the work your soul loathes--grow more soured, more embittered--maintain +a useless degrading struggle, till her youth is done, her beauty wasted, +and till you yourself have lost every shred of decency and dignity, even +that decorous outward life in which you can still wrap yourself from +the world! Think of the little house--the children--the money +difficulties--she, spiritually starved, every illusion gone,--you +incapable soon of love, incapable even of pity, conscious only of a dull +rage with her, yourself, the world! Bow the neck--submit--refuse that +long agony for yourself and her, while there is still time. +_Kismet--Kismet!_' + +And spread out before Langham's shrinking soul there lay a whole dismal +Hogarthian series, image leading to image, calamity to calamity, till in +the last scene of all the maddened inward sight perceived two figures, +two gray and withered figures, far apart, gazing at each other with cold +and sunken eyes across dark rivers of sordid irremediable regret. + +The hours passed away, and in the end, the spectre self, a cold and +bloodless conqueror, slipped back into the soul which remorse and +terror, love and pity, a last impulse of hope, a last stirring of +manhood, had been alike powerless to save. + +The February dawn was just beginning when he dragged himself to a table +and wrote. + +Then for hours afterwards he sat sunk in his chair, the stupor of +fatigue broken every now and then by a flash of curious introspection. +It was a base thing which he had done--it was also a strange thing +psychologically; and at intervals he tried to understand it, to track it +to its causes. + +At nine o'clock he crept out into the frosty daylight, found a +commissionaire who was accustomed to do errands for him, and sent him +with a letter to Lerwick Gardens. + +On his way back he passed a gunsmith's, and stood looking fascinated at +the shining barrels. Then he moved away, shaking his head, his eyes +gleaming as though the spectacle of himself had long ago passed the +bounds of tragedy--become farcical even. + +'I should only stand a month--arguing--with my finger on the trigger.' + +In the little hall his landlady met him, gave a start at the sight of +him, and asked him if he ailed and if she could do anything for him. He +gave her a sharp answer and went upstairs, where she heard him dragging +books and boxes about as though he were packing. + +A little later Rose was standing at the dining-room window of No. 27, +looking on to a few trees bedecked with rime which stood outside. The +ground and roofs were white, a promise of sun was struggling through the +fog. So far everything in these unfrequented Campden Hill roads was +clean, crisp, enlivening, and the sparkle in Rose's mood answered to +that of Nature. + +Breakfast had just been cleared away. Agnes was upstairs with Mrs. +Leyburn. Catherine, who was staying in the house for a day or two, was +in a chair by the fire reading some letters forwarded to her from +Bedford Square. + +He would appear some time in the morning, she supposed. With an +expression half rueful, half amused, she fell to imagining his interview +with Catherine, with her mother. Poor Catherine! Rose feels herself +happy enough to allow herself a good honest pang of remorse for much of +her behaviour to Catherine this winter; how thorny she has been, how +unkind often, to this sad changed sister. And now this will be a fresh +blow! 'But afterwards, when she has got over it,--when she knows that it +makes me happy,--that nothing else would make me happy,--then she will +be reconciled, and she and I perhaps will make friends, all over again, +from the beginning. I won't be angry or hard over it--poor Cathie!' + +And with regard to Mr. Flaxman. As she stands there waiting idly for +what destiny may send her, she puts herself through a little light +catechism about this other friend of hers. He had behaved somewhat oddly +towards her of late; she begins now to remember that her exit from Lady +Charlotte's house the night before had been a very different matter from +the royally attended leave-takings, presided over by Mr. Flaxman, which +generally befell her there. Had he understood? With a little toss of her +head she said to herself that she did not care if it was so. 'I have +never encouraged Mr. Flaxman to think I was going to marry him.' + +But of course Mr. Flaxman will consider she has done badly for herself. +So will Lady Charlotte and all her outer world. They will say she is +dismally throwing herself away, and her mother, no doubt influenced by +the clamour, will take up very much the same line. + +What matter! The girl's spirit seemed to rise against all the world. +There was a sort of romantic exaltation in her sacrifice of herself, a +jubilant looking forward to remonstrance, a wilful determination to +overcome it. That she was about to do the last thing she could have been +expected to do, gave her pleasure. Almost all artistic faculty goes with +a love of surprise and caprice in life. Rose had her full share of the +artistic love for the impossible and the difficult. + +Besides--success! To make a man hope and love, and live again--_that_ +shall be her success. She leaned against the window, her eyes filling, +her heart very soft. + +Suddenly she saw a commissionaire coming up the little flagged passage +to the door. He gave in a note, and immediately afterwards the +dining-room door opened. + +'A letter for you, Miss,' said the maid. + +Rose took it--glanced at the handwriting. A bright flush--a +surreptitious glance at Catherine who sat absorbed in a wandering letter +from Mrs. Darcy. Then the girl carried her prize to the window and +opened it. + +Catherine read on, gathering up the Murewell names and details as some +famished gleaner might gather up the scattered ears on a plundered +field. At last something in the silence of the room, and of the other +inmate in it, struck her. + +'Rose,' she said, looking up, 'was that some one brought you a note?' + +The girl turned with a start--a letter fell to the ground. She made a +faint ineffectual effort to pick it up, and sank into a chair. + +'Rose--darling!' cried Catherine, springing up, 'are you ill?' + +Rose looked at her with a perfectly colourless fixed face, made a feeble +negative sign, and then laying her arms on the breakfast-table in front +of her, let her head fall upon them. + +Catherine stood over her aghast. 'My darling--what is it? Come and lie +down--take this water.' + +She put some close to her sister's hand, but Rose pushed it away. 'Don't +talk to me,' she said with difficulty. + +Catherine knelt beside her in helpless pain and perplexity, her cheek +resting against her sister's shoulder as a mute sign of sympathy. What +could be the matter? Presently her gaze travelled from Rose to the +letter on the floor. It lay with the address uppermost, and she at once +recognised Langham's handwriting. But before she could combine any +rational ideas with this quick perception, Rose had partially mastered +herself. She raised her head slowly and grasped her sister's arm. + +'I was startled,' she said, a forced smile on her white lips. 'Last +night Mr. Langham asked me to marry him--I expected him here this +morning to consult with mamma and you. That letter is to inform me +that--he made a mistake--and he is very sorry! So am I! It is +so--so--bewildering!' + +She got up restlessly and went to the fire as though shivering with +cold. Catherine thought she hardly knew what she was saying. The elder +sister followed her, and throwing an arm round her, pressed the slim +irresponsive figure close. Her eyes were bright with anger, her lips +quivering. + +'That he should _dare_!' she cried. 'Rose--my poor little Rose.' + +'Don't blame him!' said Rose, crouching down before the fire, while +Catherine fell into the armchair again. 'It doesn't seem to count, from +you--you have always been so ready to blame him!' + +Her brow contracted; she looked frowning into the fire, her still +colourless mouth working painfully. + +Catherine was cut to the heart. 'Oh, Rose!' she said, holding out her +hands, 'I will blame no one, dear. I seem hard--but I love you so. Oh, +tell me--you would have told me everything once!' + +There was the most painful yearning in her tone. Rose lifted a listless +right hand and put it into her sister's outstretched palms. But she made +no answer, till suddenly, with a smothered cry, she fell towards +Catherine. + +'Catherine! I cannot bear it. I said I loved him--he kissed me--I could +kill myself and him.' + +Catherine never forgot the mingled tragedy and domesticity of the hour +that followed--the little familiar morning sounds in and about the +house, maids running up and down stairs, tradesmen calling, bells +ringing,--and here, at her feet, a spectacle of moral and mental +struggle which she only half understood, but which wrung her inmost +heart. Two strains of feeling seemed to be present in Rose--a sense of +shock, of wounded pride, of intolerable humiliation, and a strange +intervening passion of pity, not for herself but for Langham, which +seemed to have been stirred in her by his letter. But though the elder +questioned, and the younger seemed to answer, Catherine could hardly +piece the story together, nor could she find the answer to the question +filling her own indignant heart, 'Does she love him?' + +At last Rose got up from her crouching position by the fire and stood, a +white ghost of herself, pushing back the bright encroaching hair from +eyes that were dry and feverish. + +'If I could only be angry--downright angry,' she said, more to herself +than Catherine, 'it would do one good.' + +'Give others leave to be angry for you!' cried Catherine. + +'Don't!' said Rose, almost fiercely, drawing herself away. 'You don't +know. It is a fate. Why did we ever meet? You may read his letter; you +must--you misjudge him--you always have. No, no'--and she nervously +crushed the letter in her hand--'not yet. But you shall read it some +time--you and Robert too. Married people always tell one another. It is +due to him, perhaps due to me too,' and a hot flush transfigured her +paleness for an instant. 'Oh, my head! Why does one's mind affect one's +body like this? It shall not--it is humiliating! "Miss Leyburn has been +jilted and cannot see visitors,"--that is the kind of thing. Catherine, +when you have finished that document, will you kindly come and hear me +practise my last Raff--I am going. Good-bye.' + +She moved to the door, but Catherine had only just time to catch her, or +she would have fallen over a chair from sudden giddiness. + +'Miserable!' she said, dashing a tear from her eyes, 'I must go and lie +down then in the proper missish fashion. Mind, on your peril, Catherine, +not a word to any one but Robert. I shall tell Agnes. And Robert is not +to speak to me! No, don't come--I will go alone.' + +And warning her sister back, she groped her way upstairs. Inside her +room, when she had locked the door, she stood a moment upright with the +letter in her hand,--the blotted incoherent scrawl, where Langham had +for once forgotten to be literary, where every pitiable half-finished +sentence pleaded with her--even in the first smart of her wrong--for +pardon, for compassion, as towards something maimed and paralysed from +birth, unworthy even of her contempt. Then the tears began to rain over +her cheeks. + +'I was not good enough--I was not good enough--God would not let me!' + +And she fell on her knees beside the bed, the little bit of paper +crushed in her hands against her lips. Not good enough for what? _To +save?_ + +How lightly she had dreamed of healing, redeeming, changing! And the +task is refused her. It is not so much the cry of personal desire that +shakes her as she kneels and weeps, nor is it mere wounded woman's +pride. It is a strange stern sense of law. Had she been other than she +is--more loving, less self-absorbed, loftier in motive--he could not +have loved her so, have left her so. Deep undeveloped forces of +character stir within her. She feels herself judged,--and with a +righteous judgment--issuing inexorably from the facts of life and +circumstance. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Catherine was shut up downstairs with Robert, who had come +over early to see how the household fared. + +Robert listened to the whole luckless story with astonishment and +dismay. This particular possibility of mischief had gone out of his mind +for some time. He had been busy in his East End work. Catherine had been +silent. Over how many matters they would once have discussed with open +heart was she silent now? + +'I ought to have been warned,' he said with quick decision, 'if you knew +this was going on. I am the only man among you, and I understand Langham +better than the rest of you. I might have looked after the poor child a +little.' + +Catherine accepted the reproach mutely as one little smart the more. +However, what had she known? She had seen nothing unusual of late, +nothing to make her think a crisis was approaching. Nay, she had +flattered herself that Mr. Flaxman, whom she liked, was gaining ground. + +Meanwhile Robert stood pondering anxiously what could be done. Could +anything be done? + +'I must go and see him,' he said presently. 'Yes, dearest, I must. +Impossible the thing should be left so! I am his old friend,--almost her +guardian. You say she is in great trouble--why, it may shadow her whole +life! No--he must explain things to us--he is bound to--he shall. It may +be something comparatively trivial in the way after all--money or +prospects or something of the sort. You have not seen the letter, you +say? It is the last marriage in the world one could have desired for +her--but if she loves him, Catherine, if she loves him----' + +He turned to her--appealing, remonstrating. Catherine stood pale and +rigid. Incredible that he should think it right to intermeddle--to take +the smallest step towards reversing so plain a declaration of God's +will! She could not sympathise--she would not consent. Robert watched +her in painful indecision. He knew that she thought him indifferent to +her true reason for finding some comfort even in her sister's +trouble--that he seemed to her mindful only of the passing human misery, +indifferent to the eternal risk. + +They stood sadly looking at one another. Then he snatched up his hat. + +'I must go,' he said in a low voice; 'it is right.' + +And he went--stepping, however, with the best intentions in the world, +into a blunder. + +Catherine sat painfully struggling with herself after he had left her. +Then some one came into the room--some one with pale looks and flashing +eyes. It was Agnes. + +'She just let me in to tell me, and put me out again,' said the +girl--her whole, even, cheerful self one flame of scorn and wrath. 'What +are such creatures made for, Catherine--why do they exist?' + +Meanwhile, Robert had trudged off through the frosty morning streets to +Langham's lodgings. His mood was very hot by the time he reached his +destination, and he climbed the staircase to Langham's room in some +excitement. When he tried to open the door after the answer to his knock +bidding him enter, he found something barring the way. 'Wait a little,' +said the voice inside, 'I will move the case.' + +With difficulty the obstacle was removed and the door opened. Seeing his +visitor, Langham stood for a moment in sombre astonishment. The room was +littered with books and packing-cases with which he had been busy. + +'Come in,' he said, not offering to shake hands. + +Robert shut the door, and, picking his way among the books, stood +leaning on the back of the chair Langham pointed out to him. Langham +paused opposite to him, his waving jet-black hair falling forward over +the marble pale face which had been Robert's young ideal of manly +beauty. + +The two men were only six years distant in age, but so strong is old +association that Robert's feeling towards his friend had always remained +in many respects the feeling of the undergraduate towards the don. His +sense of it now filled him with a curious awkwardness. + +'I know why you are come,' said Langham slowly, after a scrutiny of his +visitor. + +'I am here by a mere accident,' said the other, thinking perfect +frankness best. 'My wife was present when her sister received your +letter. Rose gave her leave to tell me. I had gone up to ask after them +all, and came on to you,--of course on my own responsibility entirely! +Rose knows nothing of my coming--nothing of what I have to say.' + +He paused, struck against his will by the looks of the man before him. +Whatever he had done during the past twenty-four hours he had clearly +had the grace to suffer in the doing of it. + +'You can have nothing to say!' said Langham, leaning against the +chimney piece and facing him with black, darkly-burning eyes. 'You know +me.' + +Never had Robert seen him under this aspect. All the despair, all the +bitterness hidden under the languid student's exterior of every day, +had, as it were, risen to the surface. He stood at bay, against his +friend, against himself. + +'No!' exclaimed Robert stoutly, 'I do not know you in the sense you +mean. I do not know you as the man who could beguile a girl on to a +confession of love, and then tell her that for you marriage was too +great a burden to be faced!' + +Langham started, and then closed his lips in an iron silence. Robert +repented him a little. Langham's strange individuality always impressed +him against his will. + +'I did not come simply to reproach you, Langham,' he went on, 'though I +confess to being very hot! I came to try and find out--for myself only, +mind--whether what prevents you from following up what I understand +happened last night is really a matter of feeling, or a matter of +outward circumstance. If, upon reflection, you find that your feeling +for Rose is not what you imagined it to be, I shall have my own opinion +about your conduct--but I shall be the first to acquiesce in what you +have done this morning. If, on the other hand, you are simply afraid of +yourself in harness, and afraid of the responsibilities of practical +married life, I cannot help begging you to talk the matter over with me, +and let us face it together. Whether Rose would ever, under any +circumstances, get over the shock of this morning I have not the +remotest idea. But'--and he hesitated--'it seems the feeling you +appealed to yesterday has been of long growth. You know perfectly well +what havoc a thing of this kind _may_ make in a girl's life. I don't say +it will. But, at any rate, it is all so desperately serious I could not +hold my hand. I am doing what is no doubt wholly unconventional; but I +am your friend and her brother; I brought you together, and I ask you to +take me into counsel. If you had but done it before!' + +There was a moment's dead silence. + +'You cannot pretend to believe,' said Langham at last, with the same +sombre self-containedness, 'that a marriage with me would be for your +sister-in-law's happiness?' + +'I don't know what to believe!' cried Robert. 'No,' he added frankly, +'no; when I saw you first attracted by Rose at Murewell I disliked the +idea heartily; I was glad to see you separated; _a priori_, I never +thought you suited to each other. But reasoning that holds good when a +thing is wholly in the air looks very different when a man has committed +himself and another, as you have done.' + +Langham surveyed him for a moment, then shook his hair impatiently from +his eyes and rose from his bending position by the fire. + +'Elsmere, there is nothing to be said! I have behaved as vilely as you +please. I have forfeited your friendship. But I should be an even +greater fiend and weakling than you think me if, in cold blood, I could +let your sister run the risk of marrying me. I could not trust +myself--you may think of the statement as you like--I should make her +_miserable_. Last night I had not parted from her an hour before I was +utterly and irrevocably sure of it. My habits are my masters. I +believe,' he added slowly, his eyes fixed weirdly on something beyond +Robert, 'I could even grow to _hate_ what came between me and them!' + +Was it the last word of the man's life? It struck Robert with a kind of +shiver. + +'Pray heaven,' he said with a groan, getting up to go, 'you may not have +made her miserable already!' + +'Did it hurt her so much?' asked Langham almost inaudibly, turning away, +Robert's tone meanwhile calling up a new and scorching image in the +subtle brain tissue. + +'I have not seen her,' said Robert abruptly; 'but when I came in I found +my wife--who has no light tears--weeping for her sister.' + +His voice dropped as though what he were saying were in truth too +pitiful and too intimate for speech. + +Langham said no more. His face had become a marble mask again. + +'Good-bye!' said Robert, taking up his hat with a dismal sense of having +got foolishly through a fool's errand. 'As I said to you before, what +Rose's feeling is at this moment I cannot even guess. Very likely she +would be the first to repudiate half of what I have been saying. And I +see that you will not talk to me--you will not take me into your +confidence and speak to me not only as her brother but as your friend. +And--and--are you going? What does this mean?' + +He looked interrogatively at the open packing-cases. + +'I am going back to Oxford,' said the other briefly. 'I cannot stay in +these rooms, in these streets.' + +Robert was sore perplexed. What real--nay, what terrible suffering--in +the face and manner, and yet how futile, how needless! He felt himself +wrestling with something intangible and phantom-like, wholly +unsubstantial, and yet endowed with a ghastly indefinite power over +human life. + +'It is very hard,' he said hurriedly, moving nearer, 'that our old +friendship should be crossed like this. Do trust me a little! You are +always undervaluing yourself. Why not take a friend into council +sometimes when you sit in judgment on yourself and your possibilities? +Your own perceptions are all warped!' + +Langham, looking at him, thought his smile one of the most beautiful and +one of the most irrelevant things he had ever seen. + +'I will write to you, Elsmere,' he said, holding out his hand, 'speech +is impossible to me. I never had any words except through my pen.' + +Robert gave it up. In another minute Langham was left alone. + +But he did no more packing for hours. He spent the middle of the day +sitting dumb and immovable in his chair. Imagination was at work again +more feverishly than ever. He was tortured by a fixed image of Rose, +suffering and paling. + +And after a certain number of hours he could no more bear the incubus of +this thought than he could put up with the flat prospects of married +life the night before. He was all at sea, barely sane, in fact. His life +had been so long purely intellectual that this sudden strain of passion +and fierce practical interests seemed to unhinge him, to destroy his +mental balance. + +He bethought him. This afternoon he knew she had a last rehearsal at +Searle House. Afterwards her custom was to come back from St. James's +Park to High Street, Kensington, and walk up the hill to her own home. +He knew it, for on two occasions after these rehearsals he had been at +Lerwick Gardens, waiting for her, with Agnes and Mrs. Leyburn. Would she +go this afternoon? A subtle instinct told him that she would. + + * * * * * + +It was nearly six o'clock that evening when Rose, stepping out from the +High Street station, crossed the main road and passed into the darkness +of one of the streets leading up the hill. She had forced herself to go, +and she would go alone. But as she toiled along she felt weary and +bruised all over. She carried with her a heart of lead--a sense of utter +soreness--a longing to hide herself from eyes and tongues. The only +thing that dwelt softly in the shaken mind was a sort of inconsequent +memory of Mr. Flaxman's manner at the rehearsal. Had she looked so ill? +She flushed hotly at the thought, and then realised again, with a sense +of childish comfort, the kind look and voice, the delicate care shown in +shielding her from any unnecessary exertion, the brotherly grasp of the +hand with which he had put her into the cab that took her to the +Underground. + +Suddenly, where the road made a dark turn to the right, she saw a man +standing. As she came nearer she saw that it was Langham. + +'You!' she cried, stopping. + +He came up to her. There was a light over the doorway of a large +detached house not far off, which threw a certain illumination over him, +though it left her in shadow. He said nothing, but he held out both his +hands mutely. She fancied rather than saw the pale emotion of his look. + +'What?' she said, after a pause. 'You think to-night is last night! You +and I have nothing to say to each other, Mr. Langham.' + +'I have everything to say,' he answered, under his breath; 'I have +committed a crime--a villainy.' + +'And it is not pleasant to you?' she said, quivering. 'I am sorry--I +cannot help you. But you are wrong--it was no crime--it was necessary +and profitable, like the doses of one's childhood! Oh! I might have +guessed you would do this; No, Mr. Langham, I am in no danger of an +interesting decline. I have just played my _concerto_ very fairly. I +shall not disgrace myself at the concert to-morrow night. You may be at +peace--I have learnt several things to-day that have been salutary--very +salutary.' + +She paused. He walked beside her while she pelted him,--unresisting, +helplessly silent. + +'Don't come any farther,' she said resolutely after a minute, turning to +face him. 'Let us be quits! I was a temptingly easy prey. I bear no +malice. And do not let me break your friendship with Robert; that began +before this foolish business--it should outlast it. Very likely _we_ +shall be friends again, like ordinary people, some day. I do not imagine +your wound is very deep, and----' + +But no! Her lips closed; not even for pride's sake, and retort's sake, +will she desecrate the past, belittle her own first love. + +She held out her hand. It was very dark. He could see nothing among her +furs but the gleaming whiteness of her face. The whole personality +seemed centred in the voice--the half-mocking vibrating voice. He took +her hand and dropped it instantly. + +'You do not understand,' he said hopelessly--feeling as though every +phrase he uttered, or could utter, were equally fatuous, equally +shameful. 'Thank heaven, you never will understand.' + +'I think I do,' she said with a change of tone, and paused. He raised +his eyes involuntarily, met hers, and stood bewildered. What _was_ the +expression in them? It was yearning--but not the yearning of passion. +'If things had been different--if one could change the self--if the past +were nobler!'--was that the cry of them? A painful humility--a boundless +pity--the rise of some moral wave within her he could neither measure +nor explain--these were some of the impressions which passed from her to +him. A fresh gulf opened between them, and he saw her transformed on the +farther side, with, as it were, a loftier gesture, a nobler stature, +than had ever yet been hers. + +He bent forward quickly, caught her hands, held them for an instant to +his lips in a convulsive grasp, dropped them, and was gone. + +He gained his own room again. There lay the medley of his books, his +only friends, his real passion. Why had he ever tampered with any other? + +'_It was not love--not love!_' he said to himself, with an accent of +infinite relief as he sank into his chair. '_Her_ smart will heal.' + + + + +BOOK VI + +NEW OPENINGS + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Ten days after Langham's return to Oxford Elsmere received a +characteristic letter from him, asking whether their friendship was to +be considered as still existing or at an end. The calm and even proud +melancholy of the letter showed a considerable subsidence of that state +of half-frenzied irritation and discomfort in which Elsmere had last +seen him. The writer, indeed, was clearly settling down into another +period of pessimistic quietism such as that which had followed upon his +first young efforts at self-assertion years before. But this second +period bore the marks of an even profounder depression of all the vital +forces than the first, and as Elsmere, with a deep sigh, half-angry, +half-relenting, put down the letter, he felt the conviction that no +fresh influence from outside would ever again be allowed to penetrate +the solitude of Langham's life. In comparison with the man who had just +addressed him, the tutor of his undergraduate recollections was a +vigorous and sociable human being. + +The relenting grew upon him, and he wrote a sensible affectionate letter +in return. Whatever had been his natural feelings of resentment, he +said, he could not realise, now that the crisis was past, that he cared +less about his old friend. 'As far as we two are concerned, let us +forget it all. I could hardly say this, you will easily imagine, if I +thought that you had done serious or irreparable harm. But both my wife +and I agree now in thinking that by a pure accident, as it were, and to +her own surprise, Rose has escaped either. It will be some time, no +doubt, before she will admit it. A girl is not so easily disloyal to her +past. But to us it is tolerably clear. At any rate, I send you our +opinion for what it is worth, believing that it will and must be welcome +to you.' + +Rose, however, was not so long in admitting it. One marked result of +that new vulnerableness of soul produced in her by the shock of that +February morning was a great softening towards Catherine. Whatever might +have been Catherine's intense relief when Robert returned from his +abortive mission, she never afterwards let a disparaging word towards +Langham escape her lips to Rose. She was tenderness and sympathy +itself, and Rose, in her curious reaction against her old self, and +against the noisy world of flattery and excitement in which she had been +living, turned to Catherine as she had never done since she was a tiny +child. She would spend hours in a corner of the Bedford Square +drawing-room, pretending to read, or play with little Mary, in reality +recovering, like some bruised and trodden plant, under the healing +influence of thought and silence. + +One day, when they were alone in the firelight, she startled Catherine +by saying with one of her old odd smiles-- + +'Do you know, Cathie, how I always see myself nowadays? It is a sort of +hallucination. I see a girl at the foot of a precipice. She has had a +fall, and she is sitting up, feeling all her limbs. And, to her great +astonishment, there is no bone broken!' + +And she held herself back from Catherine's knee lest her sister should +attempt to caress her, her eyes bright and calm. Nor would she allow an +answer, drowning all that Catherine might have said in a sudden rush +after the child, who was wandering round them in search of a playfellow. + +In truth, Rose Leyburn's girlish passion for Edward Langham had been a +kind of accident unrelated to the main forces of character. He had +crossed her path in a moment of discontent, of aimless revolt and +longing, when she was but fresh emerged from the cramping conditions of +her childhood and trembling on the brink of new and unknown activities. +His intellectual prestige, his melancholy, his personal beauty, his very +strangenesses and weaknesses, had made a deep impression on the girl's +immature romantic sense. His resistance had increased the charm, and the +interval of angry resentful separation had done nothing to weaken it. As +to the months in London, they had been one long duel between herself and +him--a duel which had all the fascination of difficulty and uncertainty, +but in which pride and caprice had dealt and sustained a large +proportion of the blows. Then, after a moment of intoxicating victory, +Langham's endangered habits and threatened individuality had asserted +themselves once for all. And from the whole long struggle--passion, +exultation, and crushing defeat--it often seemed to her that she had +gained neither joy nor irreparable grief, but a new birth of character, +a soul! + +It may be easily imagined that Hugh Flaxman felt a peculiarly keen +interest in Langham's disappearance. On the afternoon of the Searle +House rehearsal he had awaited Rose's coming in a state of extraordinary +irritation. He expected a blushing _fiancee_, in a fool's paradise, +asking by manner, if not by word, for his congratulations, and taking a +decent feminine pleasure perhaps in the pang she might suspect in him. +And he had already taken his pleasure in the planning of some +double-edged congratulations. + +Then up the steps of the concert platform there came a pale tired girl, +who seemed specially to avoid his look, who found a quiet corner and +said hardly a word to anybody till her turn came to play. + +His revulsion of feeling was complete. After her piece he made his way +up to her, and was her watchful unobtrusive guardian for the rest of the +afternoon. + +He walked home after he had put her into her cab in a whirl of impatient +conjecture. + +'As compared to last night, she looks this afternoon as if she had had +an illness! What on earth has that philandering ass been about? If he +did not propose to her last night, he ought to be shot--and if he did, +_a fortiori_, for clearly she is _miserable_. But what a brave child! +How she played her part! I wonder whether she thinks that _I_ saw +nothing, like all the rest! Poor little cold hand!' + +Next day in the street he met Elsmere, turned and walked with him, and +by dint of leading the conversation a little discovered that Langham had +left London. + +Gone! But not without a crisis--that was evident. During the din of +preparations for the Searle House concert, and during the meetings which +it entailed, now at the Varleys', now at the house of some other +connection of his--for the concert was the work of his friends, and +given in the town house of his decrepit great-uncle, Lord Daniel--he had +many opportunities of observing Rose. And he felt a soft indefinable +change in her which kept him in a perpetual answering vibration of +sympathy and curiosity. She seemed to him for the moment to have lost +her passionate relish for living, that relish which had always been so +marked with her. Her bubble of social pleasure was pricked. She did +everything she had to do, and did it admirably. But all through she was +to his fancy absent and _distraite_, pursuing through the tumult of +which she was often the central figure some inner meditations of which +neither he nor any one else knew anything. Some eclipse had passed over +the girl's light self-satisfied temper; some searching thrill of +experience had gone through the whole nature. She had suffered, and she +was quietly fighting down her suffering without a word to anybody. + +Flaxman's guesses as to what had happened came often very near the +truth, and the mixture of indignation and relief with which he received +his own conjectures amused himself. + +'To think,' he said to himself once with a long breath, 'that that +creature was never at a public school, and will go to his death without +any one of the kickings due to him!' + +Then his very next impulse, perhaps, would be an impulse of gratitude +towards this same 'creature,' towards the man who had released a prize +he had had the tardy sense to see was not meant for him. _Free_ +again--to be loved, to be won! There was the fact of facts after all. + +His own future policy, however, gave him much anxious thought. Clearly +at present the one thing to be done was to keep his own ambitions +carefully out of sight. He had the skill to see that she was in a state +of reaction, of moral and mental fatigue. What she mutely seemed to ask +of her friends was not to be made to feel. + +He took his cue accordingly. He talked to his sister. He kept Lady +Charlotte in order. After all her eager expectation on Hugh's behalf, +Lady Helen had been dumfoundered by the sudden emergence of Langham at +Lady Charlotte's party for their common discomfiture. Who was the +man?--why, what did it all mean? Hugh had the most provoking way of +giving you half his confidence. To tell you he was seriously in love, +and to omit to add the trifling item that the girl in question was +probably on the point of engaging herself to somebody else! Lady Helen +made believe to be angry, and it was not till she had reduced Hugh to a +whimsical penitence and a full confession of all he knew or suspected, +that she consented, with as much loftiness as the physique of an elf +allowed her, to be his good friend again, and to play those cards for +him which at the moment he could not play for himself. + +So in the cheeriest daintiest way Rose was made much of by both brother +and sister. Lady Helen chatted of gowns and music and people, whisked +Rose and Agnes off to this party and that, brought fruit and flowers to +Mrs. Leyburn, made pretty deferential love to Catherine, and generally, +to Mrs. Pierson's disgust, became the girls' chief chaperon in a +fast-filling London. Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman was always there to befriend +or amuse his sister's _proteges_--always there, but never in the way. He +was bantering, sympathetic, critical, laudatory, what you will; but all +the time he preserved a delicate distance between himself and Rose, a +bright nonchalance and impersonality of tone towards her which made his +companionship a perpetual tonic. And, between them, he and Helen coerced +Lady Charlotte. A few inconvenient inquiries after Rose's health, a few +unexplained stares and 'humphs' and grunts, a few irrelevant +disquisitions on her nephew's merits of head and heart, were all she was +able to allow herself. And yet she was inwardly seething with a mass of +sentiments, to which it would have been pleasant to give +expression--anger with Rose for having been so blind and so presumptuous +as to prefer some one else to Hugh; anger with Hugh for his persistent +disregard of her advice and the duke's feelings; and a burning desire to +know the precise why and wherefore of Langham's disappearance. She was +too lofty to become Rose's aunt without a struggle, but she was not too +lofty to feel the hungriest interest in her love affairs. + + * * * * * + +But, as we have said, the person who for the time profited most by +Rose's shaken mood was Catherine. The girl coming over, restless under +her own smart, would fall to watching the trial of the woman and the +wife, and would often perforce forget herself and her smaller woes in +the pity of it. She stayed in Bedford Square once for a week, and then +for the first time she realised the profound change which had passed +over the Elsmeres' life. As much tenderness, between husband and wife as +ever--perhaps more expression of it even than before, as though from an +instinctive craving to hide the separateness below from each other and +from the world. But Robert went his way, Catherine hers. Their spheres +of work lay far apart; their interests were diverging fast; and though +Robert at any rate was perpetually resisting, all sorts of fresh +invading silences were always coming in to limit talk, and increase the +number of sore points which each avoided. Robert was hard at work in the +East End under Murray Edwardes's auspices. He was already known to +certain circles as a seceder from the Church who was likely to become +both powerful and popular. Two articles of his in the _Nineteenth +Century_, on disputed points of Biblical criticism, had distinctly made +their mark, and several of the veterans of philosophical debate had +already taken friendly and flattering notice of the new writer. +Meanwhile Catherine was teaching in Mr. Clarendon's Sunday school, and +attending his prayer-meetings. The more expansive Robert's energies +became, the more she suffered, and the more the small daily +opportunities for friction multiplied. Soon she could hardly bear to +hear him talk about his work, and she never opened the number of the +_Nineteenth Century_ which contained his papers. Nor had he the heart to +ask her to read them. + +Murray Edwardes had received Elsmere, on his first appearance in R----, +with a cordiality and a helpfulness of the most self-effacing kind. +Robert had begun with assuring his new friend that he saw no chance, at +any rate for the present, of his formally joining the Unitarians. + +'I have not the heart to pledge myself again just yet! And I own I look +rather for a combination from many sides than for the development of any +now existing sect. But supposing,' he added, smiling, 'supposing I do in +time set up a congregation and a service of my own, is there really room +for you and me? Should I not be infringing on a work I respect a great +deal too much for anything of the sort?' + +Edwardes laughed the notion to scorn. + +The parish, as a whole, contained 20,000 persons. The existing churches, +which, with the exception of St. Wilfrid's, were miserably attended, +provided accommodation at the outside for 3000. His own chapel held 400, +and was about half full. + +'You and I may drop our lives here,' he said, his pleasant friendliness +darkened for a moment by the look of melancholy which London work seems +to develop even in the most buoyant of men, 'and only a few hundred +persons, at the most, be ever the wiser. Begin with us--then make your +own circle.' + +And he forthwith carried off his visitor to the point from which, as it +seemed to him, Elsmere's work might start, viz. a lecture-room half a +mile from his own chapel, where two helpers of his had just established +an independent venture. + +Murray Edwardes had at the time an interesting and miscellaneous staff +of lay-curates. He asked no questions as to religious opinions, but in +general the men who volunteered under him--civil servants, a young +doctor, a briefless barrister or two--were men who had drifted from +received beliefs, and found a pleasure and freedom in working for and +with him they could hardly have found elsewhere. The two who had planted +their outpost in what seemed to them a particularly promising corner of +the district were men of whom Edwardes knew personally little. 'I have +really not much concern with what they do,' he explained to Elsmere, +'except that they get a small share of our funds. But I know they want +help, and if they will take you in, I think you will make something of +it.' + +After a tramp through the muddy winter streets, they came upon a new +block of warehouses, in the lower windows of which some bills announced +a night-school for boys and men. Here, to judge from the commotion round +the doors, a lively scene was going on. Outside, a gang of young roughs +were hammering at the doors, and shrieking witticisms through the +keyhole. Inside, as soon as Murray Edwardes and Elsmere, by dint of good +humour and strong shoulders, had succeeded in shoving their way through +and shutting the door behind them, they found a still more animated +performance in progress. The schoolroom was in almost total darkness; +the pupils, some twenty in number, were racing about, like so many +shadowy demons, pelting each other and their teachers with the 'dips' +which, as the buildings were new, and not yet fitted for gas, had been +provided to light them through their three R's. In the middle stood the +two philanthropists they were in search of, freely bedaubed with tallow, +one employed in boxing a boy's ears, the other in saving a huge +inkbottle whereon some enterprising spirit had just laid hands by way of +varying the rebel ammunition. Murray Edwardes, who was in his element, +went to the rescue at once, helped by Robert. The boy-minister, as he +looked, had been, in fact, 'bow' of the Cambridge eight, and possessed +muscles which men twice his size might have envied. In three minutes he +had put a couple of ringleaders into the street by the scruff of the +neck, relit a lamp which had been turned out, and got the rest of the +rioters in hand. Elsmere backed him ably, and in a very short time they +had cleared the premises. + +Then the four looked at each other, and Edwardes went off into a shout +of laughter. + +'My dear Wardlaw, my condolences to your coat! But I don't believe if I +were a rough myself I could resist "dips." Let me introduce a +friend--Mr. Elsmere--and if you will have him, a recruit for your work. +It seems to me another pair of arms will hardly come amiss to you!' + +The short red-haired man addressed shook hands with Elsmere, +scrutinising him from under bushy eyebrows. He was panting and +beplastered with tallow, but the inner man was evidently quite +unruffled, and Elsmere liked the shrewd Scotch face and gray eyes. + +'It isn't only a pair of arms we want,' he remarked drily, 'but a bit of +science behind them. Mr. Elsmere, I observed, can use his.' + +Then he turned to a tall affected-looking youth with a large nose and +long fair hair, who stood gasping with his hands upon his sides, his +eyes, full of a moody wrath, fixed on the wreck and disarray of the +schoolroom. + +'Well, Mackay, have they knocked the wind out of you? My friend and +helper--Mr. Elsmere. Come and sit down, won't you, a minute. They've +left us the chairs, I perceive, and there's a spark or two of fire. Do +you smoke? Will you light up?' + +The four men sat on chatting some time, and then Wardlaw and Elsmere +walked home together. It had been all arranged. Mackay, a curious morbid +fellow, who had thrown himself into Unitarianism and charity mainly out +of opposition to an orthodox and _bourgeois_ family, and who had a great +idea of his own social powers, was somewhat grudging and ungracious +through it all. But Elsmere's proposals were much too good to be +refused. He offered to bring to the undertaking his time, his +clergyman's experience, and as much money as might be wanted. Wardlaw +listened to him cautiously for an hour, took stock of the whole man +physically and morally, and finally said, as he very quietly and +deliberately knocked the ashes out of his pipe,-- + +'All right, I'm your man, Mr. Elsmere. If Mackay agrees, I vote we make +you captain of this venture.' + +'Nothing of the sort,' said Elsmere. 'In London I am a novice; I come to +learn, not to lead.' + +Wardlaw shook his head with a little shrewd smile. Mackay faintly +endorsed his companion's offer, and the party broke up. + +That was in January. In two months from that time, by the natural force +of things, Elsmere, in spite of diffidence and his own most sincere wish +to avoid a premature leadership, had become the head and heart of the +Elgood Street undertaking, which had already assumed much larger +proportions. Wardlaw was giving him silent approval and invaluable help, +while young Mackay was in the first uncomfortable stages of a +hero-worship which promised to be exceedingly good for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +There were one or two curious points connected with the beginnings of +Elsmere's venture in North R----, one of which may just be noticed here. +Wardlaw, his predecessor and colleague, had speculatively little or +nothing in common with Elsmere or Murray Edwardes. He was a devoted and +orthodox Comtist, for whom Edwardes had provided an outlet for the +philanthropic passion, as he had for many others belonging to far +stranger and remoter faiths. + +By profession he was a barrister, with a small and struggling practice. +On this practice, however, he had married, and his wife, who had been a +doctor's daughter and a national schoolmistress, had the same ardours as +himself. They lived in one of the dismal little squares near the Goswell +Road, and had two children. The wife, as a Positivist mother is bound to +do, tended and taught her children entirely herself. She might have been +seen any day wheeling their perambulator through the dreary streets of a +dreary region; she was their Providence, their deity, the representative +to them of all tenderness and all authority. But when her work with them +was done, she would throw herself into charity organisation cases, into +efforts for the protection of workhouse servants, into the homeliest +acts of ministry towards the sick, till her dowdy little figure and her +face, which but for the stress of London, of labour, and of poverty, +would have had a blunt fresh-coloured dairymaid's charm, became symbols +of a divine and sacred helpfulness in the eyes of hundreds of straining +men and women. + +The husband also, after a day spent in chambers, would give his evenings +to teaching or committee work. They never allowed themselves to breathe +even to each other that life might have brighter things to show them +than the neighbourhood of the Goswell Road. There was a certain +narrowness in their devotion; they had their bitternesses and ignorances +like other people; but the more Robert knew of them the more profound +became his admiration for that potent spirit of social help which in our +generation Comtism has done so much to develop, even among those of us +who are but moderately influenced by Comte's philosophy, and can make +nothing of the religion of Humanity. + +Wardlaw has no large part in the story of Elsmere's work in North R----. +In spite of Robert's efforts, and against his will, the man of meaner +gifts and commoner clay was eclipsed by that brilliant and persuasive +something in Elsmere which a kind genius had infused into him at birth. +And we shall see that in time Robert's energies took a direction which +Wardlaw could not follow with any heartiness. But at the beginning +Elsmere owed him much, and it was a debt he was never tired of +honouring. + +In the first place, Wardlaw's choice of the Elgood Street room as a +fresh centre for civilising effort had been extremely shrewd. The +district lying about it, as Robert soon came to know, contained a number +of promising elements. + +Close by the dingy street which sheltered their schoolroom rose the +great pile of a new factory of artistic pottery, a rival on the north +side of the river to Doulton's immense works on the south. The old +winding streets near it, and the blocks of workmen's dwellings recently +erected under its shadow, were largely occupied by the workers in its +innumerable floors, and among these workers was a large proportion of +skilled artisans, men often of a considerable amount of cultivation, +earning high wages, and maintaining a high standard of comfort. A great +many of them, trained in the art school which Murray Edwardes had been +largely instrumental in establishing within easy distance of their +houses, were men of genuine artistic gifts and accomplishment, and as +the development of one faculty tends on the whole to set others working, +when Robert, after a few weeks' work in the place, set up a popular +historical lecture once a fortnight, announcing the fact by a blue and +white poster in the schoolroom windows, it was the potters who provided +him with his first hearers. + +The rest of the parish was divided between a population of dock +labourers, settled there to supply the needs of the great dock which ran +up into the south-eastern corner of it, two or three huge breweries, and +a colony of watchmakers, an offshoot of Clerkenwell, who lived together +in two or three streets, and showed the same peculiarities of race and +specialised training to be noticed in the more northerly settlement from +which they had been thrown off like a swarm from a hive. Outside these +well-defined trades there was, of course, a warehouse population, and a +mass of heterogeneous cadging and catering which went on chiefly in the +riverside streets at the other side of the parish from Elgood Street, in +the neighbourhood of St. Wilfrid's. + +St. Wilfrid's at this moment seemed to Robert to be doing a very +successful work among the lowest strata of the parish. From them at one +end of the scale, and from the innumerable clerks and superintendents +who during the daytime crowded the vast warehouses of which the district +was full, its Lenten congregations, now in full activity, were chiefly +drawn. + +The Protestant opposition, which had shown itself so brutally and +persistently in old days, was now, so far as outward manifestations +went, all but extinct. The cassocked monk-like clergy might preach and +'process' in the open air as much as they pleased. The populace, where +it was not indifferent, was friendly, and devoted living had borne its +natural fruits. + +A small incident, which need not be recorded, recalled to Elsmere's +mind--after he had been working some six weeks in the district--the +forgotten unwelcome fact that St. Wilfrid's was the very church where +Newcome, first as senior curate and then as vicar, had spent those ten +wonderful years into which Elsmere at Murewell had been never tired of +inquiring. The thought of Newcome was a very sore thought. Elsmere had +written to him announcing his resignation of his living immediately +after his interview with the bishop. The letter had remained unanswered, +and it was by now tolerably clear that the silence of its recipient +meant a withdrawal from all friendly relations with the writer. +Elsmere's affectionate sensitive nature took such things hardly, +especially as he knew that Newcome's life was becoming increasingly +difficult and embittered. And it gave him now a fresh pang to imagine +how Newcome would receive the news of his quondam friend's 'infidel +propaganda,' established on the very ground where he himself had all but +died for those beliefs Elsmere had thrown over. + +But Robert was learning a certain hardness in this London life which was +not without its uses to character. Hitherto he had always swum with the +stream, cheered by the support of all the great and prevailing English +traditions. Here, he and his few friends were fighting a solitary fight +apart from the organised system of English religion and English +philanthropy. All the elements of culture and religion already existing +in the place were against them. The clergy of St. Wilfrid's passed them +with cold averted eyes; the old and _faineant_ rector of the parish +church very soon let it be known what he thought as to the taste of +Elsmere's intrusion on his parish, or as to the eternal chances of those +who might take either him or Edwardes as guides in matters religious. +His enmity did Elgood Street no harm, and the pretensions of the Church, +in this Babel of 20,000 souls, to cover the whole field, bore clearly no +relation at all to the facts. But every little incident in this new +struggle of his life cost Elsmere more perhaps than it would have cost +other men. No part of it came easily to him. Only a high Utopian vision +drove him on from day to day, bracing him to act and judge, if need be, +alone and for himself, approved only by conscience and the inward voice. + + 'Tasks in hours of insight willed + Can be in hours of gloom fulfilled;' + +and it was that moment by the river which worked in him through all the +prosaic and perplexing details of this new attempt to carry enthusiasm +into life. + +It was soon plain to him that in this teeming section of London the +chance of the religious reformer lay entirely among the _upper working +class_. In London, at any rate, all that is most prosperous and +intelligent among the working class holds itself aloof--broadly +speaking--from all existing spiritual agencies, whether of Church or +Dissent. + +Upon the genuine London artisan the Church has practically no hold +whatever; and Dissent has nothing like the hold which it has on similar +material in the great towns of the North. Towards religion in general +the prevailing attitude is one of indifference tinged with hostility. +'Eight hundred thousand people in South London, of whom the enormous +proportion belong to the working class, and among them, Church and +Dissent nowhere--_Christianity not in possession_.' Such is the estimate +of an Evangelical of our day; and similar laments come from all parts of +the capital. The Londoner is on the whole more conceited, more +prejudiced, more given over to crude theorising, than his North-country +brother, the mill-hand, whose mere position, as one of a homogeneous and +tolerably constant body, subjects him to a continuous discipline of +intercourse and discussion. Our popular religion, broadly speaking, +means nothing to him. He is sharp enough to see through its +contradictions and absurdities; he has no dread of losing what he never +valued; his sense of antiquity, of history, is _nil_; and his life +supplies him with excitement enough without the stimulants of +'other-worldliness.' Religion has been on the whole irrationally +presented to him, and the result on his part has been an irrational +breach with the whole moral and religious order of ideas. + +But the race is quick-witted and imaginative. The Greek cities which +welcomed and spread Christianity carried within them much the same +elements as are supplied by certain sections of the London working +class--elements of restlessness, of sensibility, of passion. The mere +intermingling of races, which a modern capital shares with those old +towns of Asia Minor, predisposes the mind to a greater openness and +receptiveness, whether for good or evil. + +As the weeks passed on, and after the first inevitable despondency +produced by strange surroundings and an unwonted isolation had begun to +wear off, Robert often found himself filled with a strange flame and +ardour of hope! But his first steps had nothing to do with religion. He +made himself quickly felt in the night-school, and as soon as he +possibly could he hired a large room at the back of their existing room, +on the same floor, where, on the recreation evenings, he might begin the +story-telling, which had been so great a success at Murewell. The +story-telling struck the neighbourhood as a great novelty. At first only +a few youths straggled in from the front room, where dominoes and +draughts and the illustrated papers held seductive sway. The next night +the number was increased, and by the fourth or fifth evening the room +was so well filled both by boys and a large contingent of artisans, that +it seemed well to appoint a special evening in the week for +story-telling, or the recreation room would have been deserted. + +In these performances Elsmere's aim had always been twofold--the rousing +of moral sympathy and the awakening of the imaginative power pure and +simple. He ranged the whole world for stories. Sometimes it would be +merely some feature of London life itself--the history of a great fire, +for instance, and its hairbreadth escapes; a collision in the river; a +string of instances as true and homely and realistic as they could be +made of the way in which the poor help one another. Sometimes it would +be stories illustrating the dangers and difficulties of particular +trades--a colliery explosion and the daring of the rescuers; incidents +from the life of the great Northern ironworks, or from that of the +Lancashire factories; or stories of English country life and its +humours, given sometimes in dialect--Devonshire, or Yorkshire, or +Cumberland--for which he had a special gift. Or, again, he would take +the sea and its terrors--the immortal story of the _Birkenhead_; the +deadly plunge of the _Captain_; the records of the lifeboats, or the +fascinating story of the ships of science, exploring step by step, +through miles of water, the past, the inhabitants, the hills and valleys +of that underworld, that vast Atlantic bed, in which Mont Blanc might be +buried without showing even his topmost snowfield above the plain of +waves. Then at other times it would be the simple frolic and fancy of +fiction--fairy tale and legend, Greek myth or Icelandic saga, episodes +from Walter Scott, from Cooper, from Dumas; to be followed perhaps on +the next evening by the terse and vigorous biography of some man of the +people--of Stephenson or Cobden, of Thomas Cooper or John Bright, or +even of Thomas Carlyle. + +One evening, some weeks after it had begun, Hugh Flaxman, hearing from +Rose of the success of the experiment, went down to hear his new +acquaintance tell the story of Monte Cristo's escape from the Chateau +d'If. He started an hour earlier than was necessary, and with an +admirable impartiality he spent that hour at St. Wilfrid's hearing +vespers. Flaxman had a passion for intellectual or social novelty; and +this passion was beguiling him into a close observation of Elsmere. At +the same time he was crossed and complicated by all sorts of fastidious +conservative fibres, and when his friends talked rationalism, it often +gave him a vehement pleasure to maintain that a good Catholic or +Ritualist service was worth all their arguments, and would outlast them. +His taste drew him to the Church, so did a love of opposition to current +'isms.' Bishops counted on him for subscriptions, and High Church +divines sent him their pamphlets. He never refused the subscriptions, +but it should be added that with equal regularity _he_ dropped the +pamphlets into his waste-paper basket. Altogether a not very +decipherable person in religious matters--as Rose had already +discovered. + +The change from the dim and perfumed spaces of St. Wilfrid's to the bare +warehouse room with its packed rows of listeners was striking enough. +Here were no bowed figures, no _recueillement_. In the blaze of crude +light every eager eye was fixed upon the slight elastic figure on the +platform, each change in the expressive face, each gesture of the long +arms and thin flexible hands, finding its response in the laughter, the +attentive silence, the frowning suspense of the audience. At one point a +band of young roughs at the back made a disturbance, but their +neighbours had the offenders quelled and out in a twinkling, and the +room cried out for a repetition of the sentences which had been lost in +the noise. When Dantes, opening his knife with his teeth, managed to cut +the strings of the sack, a gasp of relief ran through the crowd; when at +last he reached _terra firma_ there was a ringing cheer. + +'What is he, d'ye know?' Flaxman heard a mechanic ask his neighbour, as +Robert paused for a moment to get breath, the man jerking a grimy thumb +in the story-teller's direction meanwhile. 'Seems like a parson somehow. +But he ain't a parson.' + +'Not he,' said the other laconically. 'Knows better. Most of 'em as +comes down 'ere stuffs all they have to say as full of goody-goody as an +egg's full of meat. If he wur that sort you wouldn't catch _me_ here. +Never heard him say anything in the "dear brethren" sort of style, and +I've been 'ere most o' these evenings and to his lectures besides.' + +'Perhaps he's one of your d--d sly ones,' said the first speaker +dubiously. 'Means to shovel it in by and by.' + +'Well, I don't know as I couldn't stand it if he did,' returned his +companion. 'He'd let other fellers have their say, anyhow.' + +Flaxman looked curiously at the speaker. He was a young man, a +gasfitter--to judge by the contents of the basket he seemed to have +brought in with him on his way from work--with eyes like live birds', +and small emaciated features. During the story Flaxman had noticed the +man's thin begrimed hand, as it rested on the bench in front of him, +trembling with excitement. + +Another project of Robert's, started as soon as he had felt his way a +little in the district, was the scientific Sunday school. This was the +direct result of a paragraph in Huxley's Lay Sermons, where the hint of +such a school was first thrown out. However, since the introduction of +science teaching into the Board schools, the novelty and necessity of +such a supplement to a child's ordinary education is not what it was. +Robert set it up mainly for the sake of drawing the boys out of the +streets in the afternoons, and providing them with some other food for +fancy and delight than larking and smoking and penny dreadfuls. A little +simple chemical and electrical experiment went down greatly; so did a +botany class, to which Elsmere would come armed with two stores of +flowers, one to be picked to pieces, the other to be distributed +according to memory and attention. A year before he had had a number of +large coloured plates of tropical fruit and flowers prepared for him by +a Kew assistant. These he would often set up on a large screen, or put +up on the walls, till the dingy schoolroom became a bower of superb +blossom and luxuriant leaf, a glow of red and purple and orange. And +then--still by the help of pictures--he would take his class on a tour +through strange lands, talking to them of China or Egypt or South +America, till they followed him up the Amazon, or into the pyramids or +through the Pampas, or into the mysterious buried cities of Mexico, as +the children of Hamelin followed the magic of the Pied Piper. + +Hardly any of those who came to him, adults or children, while almost +all of the artisan class, were of the poorest class. He knew it, and had +laid his plans for such a result. Such work as he had at heart has no +chance with the lowest in the social scale, in its beginnings. It must +have something to work upon, and must penetrate downwards. He only can +receive who already hath--there is no profounder axiom. + +And meanwhile the months passed on, and he was still brooding, still +waiting. At last the spark fell. + +There, in the next street but one to Elgood Street, rose the famous +Workmen's Club of North R----. It had been started by a former Liberal +clergyman of the parish, whose main object, however, had been to train +the workmen to manage it for themselves. His training had been, in fact, +too successful. Not only was it now wholly managed by artisans, but it +had come to be a centre of active, nay, brutal, opposition to the Church +and faith which had originally fostered it. In organic connection with +it was a large debating hall, in which the most notorious secularist +lecturers held forth every Sunday evening; and next door to it, under +its shadow and patronage, was a little dingy shop filled to overflowing +with the coarsest free-thinking publications, Colonel Ingersoll's books +occupying the place of honour in the window and the _Freethinker_ +placard flaunting at the door. Inside there was still more highly +seasoned literature even than the _Freethinker_ to be had. There was in +particular a small halfpenny paper which was understood to be in some +sense the special organ of the North R---- Club; which was at any rate +published close by, and edited by one of the workmen founders of the +club. This unsavoury sheet began to be more and more defiantly +advertised through the parish as Lent drew on towards Passion week, and +the exertions of St. Wilfrid's and of the other churches, which were +being spurred on by the Ritualists' success, became more apparent. Soon +it seemed to Robert that every bit of hoarding and every waste wall was +filled with the announcement:-- + +'Read _Faith and Fools_. Enormous success. Our _Comic Life of Christ_ +now nearly completed. Quite the best thing of its kind going. Woodcut +this week--Transfiguration.' + +His heart grew fierce within him. One night in Passion week he left the +night-school about ten o'clock. His way led him past the club, which was +brilliantly lit up, and evidently in full activity. Round the door there +was a knot of workmen lounging. It was a mild moonlit April night, and +the air was pleasant. Several of them had copies of _Faith and Fools_, +and were showing the week's woodcut to those about them, with chuckles +and spirts of laughter. + +Robert caught a few words as he hurried past them, and stirred by a +sudden impulse turned into the shop beyond, and asked for the paper. The +woman handed it to him, and gave him his change with a business-like +_sangfroid_, which struck on his tired nerves almost more painfully than +the laughing brutality of the men he had just passed. + +Directly he found himself in another street he opened the paper under a +lamp-post. It contained a caricature of the Crucifixion, the scroll +emanating from Mary Magdalene's mouth, in particular, containing +obscenities which cannot be quoted here. + +Robert thrust it into his pocket and strode on, every nerve quivering. + +'This is Wednesday in Passion week,' he said to himself. 'The day after +to-morrow is Good Friday!' + +He walked fast in a north-westerly direction, and soon found himself +within the City, where the streets were long since empty and silent. But +he noticed nothing around him. His thoughts were in the distant East, +among the flat roofs and white walls of Nazareth, the olives of Bethany, +the steep streets and rocky ramparts of Jerusalem. He had seen them with +the bodily eye, and the fact had enormously quickened his historical +perception. The child of Nazareth, the moralist and teacher of Capernaum +and Gennesaret, the strenuous seer and martyr of the later Jerusalem +preaching--all these various images sprang into throbbing poetic life +within him. That anything in human shape should be found capable of +dragging this life and this death through the mire of a hideous and +befouling laughter! Who was responsible? To what cause could one trace +such a temper of mind towards such an object--present and militant as +that temper is in all the crowded centres of working life throughout +modern Europe? The toiler of the world as he matures may be made to love +Socrates or Buddha or Marcus Aurelius. It would seem often as though he +could not be made to love Jesus! Is it the Nemesis that ultimately +discovers and avenges the sublimest, the least conscious departure from +simplicity and verity?--is it the last and most terrible illustration of +a great axiom: '_Faith has a judge--in truth_'? + +He went home and lay awake half the night pondering. If he could but +pour out his heart! But though Catherine, the wife of his heart, of his +youth, is there, close beside him, doubt and struggle and perplexity are +alike frozen on his lips. He cannot speak without sympathy, and she will +not hear except under a moral compulsion which he shrinks more and more +painfully from exercising. + +The next night was a story-telling night. He spent it in telling the +legend of St. Francis. When it was over he asked the audience to wait a +moment, and there and then--with the tender imaginative Franciscan +atmosphere, as it were, still about them--he delivered a short and +vigorous protest in the name of decency, good feeling, and common sense, +against the idiotic profanities with which the whole immediate +neighbourhood seemed to be reeking. It was the first time he had +approached any religious matter directly. A knot of workmen sitting +together at the back of the room looked at each other with a significant +grimace or two. + +When Robert ceased speaking one of them, an elderly watchmaker, got up +and made a dry and cynical little speech, nothing moving but the thin +lips in the shrivelled mahogany face. Robert knew the man well. He was a +Genevese by birth, Calvinist by blood, revolutionist by development. He +complained that Mr. Elsmere had taken his audience by surprise; that a +good many of those present understood the remarks he had just made as an +attack upon an institution in which many of them were deeply interested; +and that he invited Mr. Elsmere to a more thorough discussion of the +matter, in a place where he could be both heard and answered. + +The room applauded with some signs of suppressed excitement. Most of the +men there were accustomed to disputation of the sort which any Sunday +visitor to Victoria Park may hear going on there week after week. +Elsmere had made a vivid impression; and the prospect of a fight with +him had an unusual piquancy. + +Robert sprang up. 'When you will,' he said. 'I am ready to stand by what +I have just said in the face of you all, if you care to hear it.' + +Place and particulars were hastily arranged, subject to the approval of +the club committee, and Elsmere's audience separated in a glow of +curiosity and expectation. + +'Didn't I tell ye?' the gasfitter's snarling friend said to him. +'Scratch him and you find the parson. These upper-class folk, when they +come among us poor ones, always seem to me just hunting for souls, as +those Injuns he was talking about last week hunt for scalps. They can't +get to heaven without a certain number of 'em slung about 'em.' + +'Wait a bit!' said the gasfitter, his quick dark eyes betraying a +certain raised inner temperature. + +Next morning the North R---- Club was placarded with announcements that +on Easter Eve next Robert Elsmere, Esq., would deliver a lecture in the +Debating Hall on 'The Claim of Jesus upon Modern Life'; to be followed, +as usual, by general discussion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +It was the afternoon of Good Friday. Catherine had been to church at St. +Paul's, and Robert, though not without some inward struggle, had +accompanied her. Their midday meal was over, and Robert had been +devoting himself to Mary, who had been tottering round the room in his +wake, clutching one finger tight with her chubby hand. In particular, he +had been coaxing her into friendship with a wooden Japanese dragon which +wound itself in awful yet most seductive coils round the cabinet at the +end of the room. It was Mary's weekly task to embrace this horror, and +the performance went by the name of 'kissing the Jabberwock.' It had +been triumphantly achieved, and, as the reward of bravery, Mary was +being carried round the room on her father's shoulder, holding on +mercilessly to his curls, her shining blue eyes darting scorn at the +defeated monster. + +At last Robert deposited her on the rug beside a fascinating farmyard +which lay there spread out for her, and stood looking, not at the child, +but at his wife. + +'Catherine, I feel so much as Mary did three minutes ago!' + +She looked up startled. The tone was light, but the sadness, the emotion +of the eyes, contradicted it. + +'I want courage,' he went on--'courage to tell you something that may +hurt you. And yet I ought to tell it.' + +Her face took the shrinking expression which was so painful to him. But +she waited quietly for what he had to say. + +'You know, I think,' he said, looking away from her to the gray Museum +outside, 'that my work in R---- hasn't been religious as yet at all. Oh, +of course, I have said things here and there, but I haven't delivered +myself in any way. Now there has come an opening.' + +And he described to her--while she shivered a little and drew herself +together--the provocations which were leading him into a tussle with the +North R---- Club. + +'They have given me a very civil invitation. They are the sort of men +after all whom it pays to get hold of, if one can. Among their fellows, +they are the men who think. One longs to help them to think to a little +more purpose.' + +'What have you to give them, Robert?' asked Catherine after a pause, her +eyes bent on the child's stocking she was knitting. Her heart was full +enough already, poor soul. Oh, the bitterness of this Passion week! He +had been at her side often in church, but through all his tender silence +and consideration she had divined the constant struggle in him between +love and intellectual honesty, and it had filled her with a dumb +irritation and misery indescribable. Do what she would, wrestle with +herself as she would, there was constantly emerging in her now a note of +anger, not with Robert, but, as it were, with those malign forces of +which he was the prey. + +'What have I to give them?' he repeated sadly. 'Very little, Catherine, +as it seems to me to-night. But come and see.' + +His tone had a melancholy which went to her heart. In reality he was in +that state of depression which often precedes a great effort. But she +was startled by his suggestion. + +'Come with you, Robert? To the meeting of a secularist club!' + +'Why not? I shall be there to protest against outrage to what both you +and I hold dear. And the men are decent fellows. There will be no +disturbance.' + +'What are you going to do?' she asked in a low voice. + +'I have been trying to think it out,' he said with difficulty. 'I want +simply, if I can, to transfer to their minds that image of Jesus of +Nazareth which thought, and love, and reading have left upon my own. I +want to make them realise for themselves the historical character, so +far as it can be realised--to make them see for themselves the real +figure, as it went in and out amongst men--so far as our eyes can now +discern it.' + +The words came quicker towards the end, while the voice sank--took the +vibrating characteristic note the wife knew so well. + +'How can that help them?' she said abruptly. 'Your historical Christ, +Robert, will never win souls. If he was God, every word you speak will +insult him. If he was man, he was not a good man!' + +'Come and see,' was all he said, holding out his hand to her. It was in +some sort a renewal of the scene at Les Avants, the inevitable renewal +of an offer he felt bound to make, and she felt bound to resist. + +She let her knitting fall and placed her hand in his. The baby on the +rug was alternately caressing and scourging a woolly baa-lamb, which was +the fetish of her childish worship. Her broken incessant baby-talk, and +the ringing kisses with which she atoned to the baa-lamb for each +successive outrage, made a running accompaniment to the moved undertones +of the parents. + +'Don't ask me, Robert, don't ask me! Do you want me to come and sit +thinking of last year's Easter Eve?' + +'Heaven knows I was miserable enough last Easter Eve,' he said slowly. + +'And now,' she exclaimed, looking at him with a sudden agitation of +every feature, 'now you are not miserable? You are quite confident and +sure? You are going to devote your life to attacking the few remnants of +faith that still remain in the world?' + +Never in her married life had she spoken to him with this accent of +bitterness and hostility. He started and withdrew his hand, and there +was a silence. + +'I held once a wife in my arms,' he said presently with a voice hardly +audible, 'who said to me that she would never persecute her husband. But +what is persecution if it is not the determination not to understand?' + +She buried her face in her hands. 'I could not understand,' she said +sombrely. + +'And rather than try,' he insisted, 'you will go on believing that I am +a man without faith, seeking only to destroy.' + +'I know you think you have faith,' she answered, 'but how can it seem +faith to me? "He that will not confess Me before men, him will I also +deny before My Father which is in heaven." Your unbelief seems to me +more dangerous than these horrible things which shock you. For you can +make it attractive, you can make it loved, as you once made the faith +of Christ loved.' + +He was silent. She raised her face presently, whereon were the traces of +some of those quiet difficult tears which were characteristic of her, +and went softly out of the room. + +He stood a while leaning against the mantelpiece, deaf to little Mary's +clamour, and to her occasional clutches at his knees, as she tried to +raise herself on her tiny tottering feet. A sense as though of some +fresh disaster was upon him. His heart was sinking, sinking within him. +And yet none knew better than he that there was nothing fresh. It was +merely that the scene had recalled to him anew some of those unpalatable +truths which the optimist is always much too ready to forget. + +Heredity, the moulding force of circumstance, the iron hold of the past +upon the present--a man like Elsmere realises the working of these +things in other men's lives with a singular subtlety and clearness, and +is for ever overlooking them, running his head against them, in his own. + +He turned and laid his arms on the chimneypiece, burying his head on +them. Suddenly he felt a touch on his knee, and, looking down, saw Mary +peering up, her masses of dark hair streaming back from the straining +little face, the grave open mouth, and alarmed eyes. + +'Fader, tiss! fader, tiss!' she said imperatively. + +He lifted her up and covered the little brown cheeks with kisses. But +the touch of the child only woke in him a fresh dread--the like of +something he had often divined of late in Catherine. Was she actually +afraid now that he might feel himself bound in future to take her child +spiritually from her? The suspicion of such a fear in her woke in him a +fresh anguish; it seemed a measure of the distance they had travelled +from that old perfect unity. + +'She thinks I could even become in time her tyrant and torturer,' he +said to himself with measureless pain, 'and who knows--who can answer +for himself? Oh, the puzzle of living!' + +When she came back into the room, pale and quiet, Catherine said +nothing, and Robert went to his letters. But after a while she opened +his study door. + +'Robert, will you tell me what your stories are to be next week, and let +me put out the pictures?' + +It was the first time she had made any such offer. He sprang up with a +flash in his gray eyes, and brought her a slip of paper with a list. She +took it without looking at him. But he caught her in his arms, and for a +moment in that embrace the soreness of both hearts passed away. + + * * * * * + +But if Catherine would not go, Elsmere was not left on this critical +occasion without auditors from his own immediate circle. On the evening +of Good Friday Flaxman had found his way to Bedford Square, and, as +Catherine was out, was shown into Elsmere's study. + +'I have come,' he announced, 'to try and persuade you and Mrs. Elsmere +to go down with me to Greenlaws to-morrow. My Easter party has come to +grief, and it would be a real charity on your part to come and +resuscitate it. Do! You look abominably fagged, and as if some country +would do you good.' + +'But I thought----' began Robert, taken aback. + +'You thought,' repeated Flaxman coolly, 'that your two sisters-in-law +were going down there with Lady Helen, to meet some musical folk. Well, +they are not coming. Miss Leyburn thinks your mother-in-law not very +well to-day, and doesn't like to come. And your younger sister prefers +also to stay in town. Helen is much disappointed, so am I. But----' And +he shrugged his shoulders. + +Robert found it difficult to make a suitable remark. His sisters-in-law +were certainly inscrutable young women. This Easter party at Greenlaws, +Mr. Flaxman's country house, had been planned, he knew, for weeks. And +certainly nothing could be very wrong with Mrs. Leyburn, or Catherine +would have been warned. + +'I am afraid your plans must be greatly put out,' he said, with some +embarrassment. + +'Of course they are,' replied Flaxman, with a dry smile. He stood +opposite Elsmere, his hands in his pockets. + +'Will you have a confidence?' the bright eyes seemed to say. 'I am quite +ready. Claim it if you like.' + +But Elsmere had no intention of claiming it. The position of all Rose's +kindred, indeed, at the present moment was not easy. None of them had +the least knowledge of Rose's mind. Had she forgotten Langham? Had she +lost her heart afresh to Flaxman? No one knew. Flaxman's absorption in +her was clear enough. But his love-making, if it was such, was not of an +ordinary kind, and did not always explain itself. And, moreover, his +wealth and social position were elements in the situation calculated to +make people like the Elsmeres particularly diffident and discreet. +Impossible for them, much as they liked him, to make any of the +advances! + +No, Robert wanted no confidences. He was not prepared to take the +responsibility of them. So, letting Rose alone, he took up his visitor's +invitation to themselves, and explained the engagement for Easter Eve, +which tied them to London. + +'Whew!' said Hugh Flaxman, 'but that will be a shindy worth seeing. I +must come!' + +'Nonsense!' said Robert, smiling. 'Go down to Greenlaws, and go to +church. That will be much more in your line.' + +'As for church,' said Flaxman meditatively, 'if I put off my party +altogether, and stay in town, there will be this further advantage, +that, after hearing you on Saturday night, I can, with a blameless +impartiality, spend the following day in St. Andrew's, Well Street. +Yes! I telegraph to Helen--she knows my ways--and I come down to protect +you against an atheistical mob to-morrow night!' + +Robert tried to dissuade him. He did not want Flaxman. Flaxman's +Epicureanism, the easy tolerance with which, now that the effervescence +of his youth had subsided, the man harboured and dallied with a dozen +contradictory beliefs, were at times peculiarly antipathetic to Elsmere. +They were so now, just as heart and soul were nerved to an effort which +could not be made at all without the nobler sort of self-confidence. + +But Flaxman was determined. + +'No,' he said; 'this one day we'll give--to heresy. Don't look so +forbidding! In the first place, you won't see me; in the next, if you +did, you would feel me as wax in your hands. I am like the man in +Sophocles--always the possession of the last speaker! One day I am all +for the church. A certain number of chances in the hundred there still +are, you will admit, that she is in the right of it. And if so, why +should I cut myself off from a whole host of beautiful things not to be +got outside her? But the next day--_vive_ Elsmere and the Revolution! If +only Elsmere could persuade me intellectually! But I never yet came +across a religious novelty that seemed to me to have a leg of logic to +stand on!' + +He laid his hand on Robert's shoulder, his eyes twinkling with a sudden +energy. Robert made no answer. He stood erect, frowning a little, his +hands thrust far into the pockets of his light gray coat. He was in no +mood to disclose himself to Flaxman. The inner vision was fixed with +extraordinary intensity on quite another sort of antagonist, with whom +the mind was continuously grappling. + +'Ah, well--till to-morrow!' said Flaxman, with a smile, shook hands, and +went. + +Outside he hailed a cab and drove off to Lady Charlotte's. + +He found his aunt and Mr. Wynnstay in the drawing-room alone, one on +either side of the fire. Lady Charlotte was reading the latest political +biography with an apparent profundity of attention; Mr. Wynnstay was +lounging and caressing the cat. But both his aunt's absorption and Mr. +Wynnstay's nonchalance seemed to Flaxman overdone. He suspected a +domestic breeze. + +Lady Charlotte made him effusively welcome. He had come to propose that +she should accompany him the following evening to hear Elsmere lecture. + +'I advise you to come,' he said. 'Elsmere will deliver his soul, and the +amount of soul he has to deliver in these dull days is astounding. A +dowdy dress and a veil, of course. I will go down beforehand and see +some one on the spot, in case there should be difficulties about getting +in. Perhaps Miss Leyburn, too, might like to hear her brother-in-law?' + +'_Really_, Hugh,' cried Lady Charlotte impatiently, 'I think you might +take your snubbing with dignity. Her refusal this morning to go to +Greenlaws was brusqueness itself. To my mind that young person gives +herself airs!' And the Duke of Sedbergh's sister drew herself up with a +rustle of all her ample frame. + +'Yes, I was snubbed,' said Flaxman, unperturbed; 'that, however, is no +reason why she shouldn't find it attractive to go to-morrow night.' + +'And you will let her see that, just because you couldn't get hold of +her, you have given up your Easter party and left your sister in the +lurch?' + +'I never had excessive notions of dignity,' he replied composedly. 'You +may make up any story you please. The real fact is that I want to hear +Elsmere.' + +'You had better go, my dear!' said her husband sardonically. 'I cannot +imagine anything more piquant than an atheistic slum on Easter Eve.' + +'Nor can I!' she replied, her combativeness rousing at once. 'Much +obliged to you, Hugh. I will borrow my housekeeper's dress, and be ready +to leave here at half-past seven.' + +Nothing more was said of Rose, but Flaxman knew that she would be asked, +and let it alone. + +'Will his wife be there?' asked Lady Charlotte. + +'Who? Elsmere's? My dear aunt, when you happen to be the orthodox wife +of a rising heretic, your husband's opinions are not exactly the +spectacular performance they are to you and me. I should think it most +unlikely.' + +'Oh, she persecutes him, does she?' + +'She wouldn't be a woman if she didn't!' observed Mr. Wynnstay, _sotto +voce_. The small dark man was lost in a great armchair, his delicate +painter's hands playing with the fur of a huge Persian cat. Lady +Charlotte threw him an eagle glance, and he subsided--for the moment. + +Flaxman, however, was perfectly right. There had been a breeze. It had +been just announced to the master of the house by his spouse that +certain Socialist celebrities--who might any day be expected to make +acquaintance with the police--were coming to dine at his table, to +finger his spoons, and mix their diatribes with his champagne, on the +following Tuesday. Overt rebellion had never served him yet, and he knew +perfectly well that when it came to the point he should smile more or +less affably upon these gentry, as he had smiled upon others of the same +sort before. But it had not yet come to the point, and his intermediate +state was explosive in the extreme. + +Mr. Flaxman dexterously continued the subject of the Elsmeres. Dropping +his bantering tone, he delivered himself of a very delicate critical +analysis of Catherine Elsmere's temperament and position, as in the +course of several months his intimacy with her husband had revealed them +to him. He did it well, with acuteness and philosophical relish. The +situation presented itself to him as an extremely refined and yet +tragic phase of the religious difficulty, and it gave him intellectual +pleasure to draw it out in words. + +Lady Charlotte sat listening, enjoying her nephew's crisp phrases, but +also gradually gaining a perception of the human reality behind this +word-play of Hugh's. That 'good heart' of hers was touched; the large +imperious face began to frown. + +'Dear me!' she said, with a little sigh. 'Don't go on, Hugh! I suppose +it's because we all of us believe so little that the poor thing's point +of view seems to one so unreal. All the same, however,' she added, +regaining her usual role of magisterial common-sense, 'a woman, in my +opinion, ought to go with her husband in religious matters.' + +'Provided, of course, she sets him at nought in all others,' put in Mr. +Wynnstay, rising and daintily depositing the cat. 'Many men, however, my +dear, might be willing to compromise it differently. Granted a certain +_modicum_ of worldly conformity, they would not be at all indisposed to +a conscience clause.' + +He lounged out of the room, while Lady Charlotte shrugged her shoulders +with a look at her nephew in which there was an irrepressible twinkle. +Mr. Flaxman neither heard nor saw. Life would have ceased to be worth +having long ago had he ever taken sides in the smallest degree in this +_menage_. + +Flaxman walked home again, not particularly satisfied with himself and +his manoeuvres. Very likely it was quite unwise of him to have devised +another meeting between himself and Rose Leyburn so soon. Certainly she +had snubbed him--there could be no doubt of that. Nor was he in much +perplexity as to the reason. He had been forgetting himself, forgetting +his role and the whole lie of the situation, and if a man will be an +idiot he must suffer for it. He had distinctly been put back a move. + +The facts were very simple. It was now nearly three months since +Langham's disappearance. During that time Rose Leyburn had been, to +Flaxman's mind, enchantingly dependent on him. He had played his part so +well, and the beautiful high-spirited child had suited herself so +naively to his acting! Evidently she had said to herself that his age, +his former marriage, his relation to Lady Helen, his constant kindness +to her and her sister, made it natural that she should trust him, make +him her friend, and allow him an intimacy she allowed to no other male +friend. And when once the situation had been so defined in her mind, how +the girl's true self had come out!--what delightful moments that +intimacy had contained for him! + +He remembered how on one occasion he had been reading some Browning to +her and Helen, in Helen's crowded belittered drawing-room, which seemed +all piano and photographs and lilies of the valley. He never could +exactly trace the connection between the passage he had been reading and +what happened. Probably it was merely Browning's poignant passionate +note that had affected her. In spite of all her proud bright reserve, +both he and Helen often felt through these weeks that just below this +surface there was a heart which quivered at the least touch. + +He finished the lines and laid down the book. Lady Helen heard her +three-year-old boy crying upstairs, and ran up to see what was the +matter. He and Rose were left alone in the scented fire-lit room. And a +jet of flame suddenly showed him the girl's face turned away, convulsed +with a momentary struggle for self-control. She raised a hand an instant +to her eyes, not dreaming evidently that she could be seen in the +dimness; and her gloves dropped from her lap. + +He moved forward, stooped on one knee, and as she held out her hand for +the gloves, he kissed the hand very gently, detaining it afterwards as a +brother might. There was not a thought of himself in his mind. Simply he +could not bear that so bright a creature should ever be sorry. It seemed +to him intolerable, against the nature of things. If he could have +procured for her at that moment a coerced and transformed Langham, a +Langham fitted to make her happy, he could almost have done it; and, +short of such radical consolation, the very least he could do was to go +on his knee to her, and comfort her in tender brotherly fashion. + +She did not say anything; she let her hand stay a moment, and then she +got up, put on her veil, left a quiet message for Lady Helen, and +departed. But as he put her into a hansom her whole manner to him was +full of a shy shrinking sweetness. And when Rose was shy and shrinking +she was adorable. + +Well, and now he had never again gone nearly so far as to kiss her hand, +and yet because of an indiscreet moment everything was changed between +them; she had turned resentful stand-off, nay, as nearly rude as a girl +under the restraints of modern manners can manage to be. He almost +laughed as he recalled Helen's report of her interview with Rose that +morning, in which she had tried to persuade a young person outrageously +on her dignity to keep an engagement she had herself spontaneously made. + +'I am very sorry, Lady Helen,' Rose had said, her slim figure drawn up +so stiffly that the small Lady Helen felt herself totally effaced beside +her. 'But I had rather not leave London this week. I think I will stay +with mamma and Agnes.' + +And nothing Lady Helen could say moved her, or modified her formula of +refusal. + +'What _have_ you been doing, Hugh?' his sister asked him, half dismayed, +half provoked. + +Flaxman shrugged his shoulders and vowed he had been doing nothing. But, +in truth, he knew very well that the day before he had overstepped the +line. There had been a little scene between them, a quick passage of +speech, a rash look and gesture on his part, which had been quite +unpremeditated, but which had nevertheless transformed their relation. +Rose had flushed up, had said a few incoherent words, which he had +understood to be words of reproach, had left Lady Helen's as quickly as +possible, and next morning his Greenlaws party had fallen through. + +'Check, certainly,' said Flaxman to himself ruefully, as he pondered +these circumstances--'not mate, I hope, if one can but find out how not +to be a fool in future.' + +And over his solitary fire he meditated far into the night. + +Next day, at half-past seven in the evening, he entered Lady Charlotte's +drawing-room, gayer, brisker, more alert than ever. + +Rose started visibly at the sight of him, and shot a quick glance at the +unblushing Lady Charlotte. + +'I thought you were at Greenlaws,' she could not help saying to him, as +she coldly offered him her hand. _Why_ had Lady Charlotte never told her +he was to escort them? Her irritation rose anew. + +'What can one do,' he said lightly, 'if Elsmere will fix such a +performance for Easter Eve? My party was at its last gasp too; it only +wanted a telegram to Helen to give it its _coup de grace_.' + +Rose flushed up, but he turned on his heel at once, and began to banter +his aunt on the housekeeper's bonnet and veil in which she had a little +too obviously disguised herself. + +And certainly, in the drive to the East End, Rose had no reason to +complain of importunity on his part. Most of the way he was deep in talk +with Lady Charlotte as to a certain loan exhibition in the East End, to +which he and a good many of his friends were sending pictures; +apparently his time and thoughts were entirely occupied with it. Rose, +leaning back silent in her corner, was presently seized with a little +shock of surprise that there should be so many interests and relations +in his life of which she knew nothing. He was talking now as the man of +possessions and influence. She saw a glimpse of him as he was in his +public aspect, and the kindness, the disinterestedness, the quiet sense, +and the humour of his talk insensibly affected her as she sat listening. +The mental image of him which had been dominant in her mind altered a +little. Nay, she grew a little hot over it. She asked herself scornfully +whether she were not as ready as any bread-and-butter miss of her +acquaintance to imagine every man she knew in love with her. + +Very likely he had meant what he said quite differently, and she--oh! +humiliation--had flown into a passion with him for no reasonable cause. +Supposing he _had_ meant, two days ago, that if they were to go on being +friends she must let him be her lover too, it would of course have been +unpardonable. How _could_ she let any one talk to her of love +yet--especially Mr. Flaxman, who guessed, as she was quite sure, what +had happened to her? He must despise her to have imagined it. His +outburst had filled her with the oddest and most petulant resentment. +Were all men self-seeking? Did all men think women shallow and fickle? +Could a man and a woman never be honestly and simply friends? If he +_had_ made love to her, he could not possibly--and there was the sting +of it--feel towards her maiden dignity that romantic respect which she +herself cherished towards it. For it was incredible that any +delicate-minded girl should go through such a crisis as she had gone +through, and then fall calmly into another lover's arms a few weeks +later as though nothing had happened. + +How we all attitudinise to ourselves! The whole of life often seems one +long dramatic performance, in which one half of us is for ever posing to +the other half. + +But had he really made love to her?--had he meant what she had assumed +him to mean? The girl lost herself in a torment of memory and +conjecture, and meanwhile Mr. Flaxman sat opposite, talking away, and +looking certainly as little love-sick as any man can well look. As the +lamps flashed into the carriage her attention was often caught by his +profile and finely-balanced head, by the hand lying on his knee, or the +little gestures, full of life and freedom, with which he met some raid +of Lady Charlotte's on his opinions, or opened a corresponding one on +hers. There was certainly power in the man, a bright human sort of +power, which inevitably attracted her. And that he was good too she had +special grounds for knowing. + +But what an aristocrat he was after all! What an over-prosperous +exclusive set he belonged to! She lashed herself into anger as the other +two chatted and sparred, with all these names of wealthy cousins and +relations, with their parks and their pedigrees and their pictures! The +aunt and nephew were debating how they could best bleed the family, in +its various branches, of the art treasures belonging to it for the +benefit of the East-Enders; therefore the names were inevitable. But +Rose curled her delicate lip over them. And was it the best breeding, +she wondered, to leave a third person so ostentatiously outside the +conversation? + +'Miss Leyburn, why are you coughing?' said Lady Charlotte suddenly. + +'There is a great draught,' said Rose, shivering a little. + +'So there is!' cried Lady Charlotte. 'Why, we have got both the windows +open. Hugh, draw up Miss Leyburn's.' + +He moved over to her and drew it up. + +'I thought you liked a tornado,' he said to her, smiling. 'Will you have +a shawl?--there is one behind me.' + +'No, thank you,' she replied rather stiffly, and he was +silent--retaining his place opposite to her, however. + +'Have we reached Mr. Elsmere's part of the world yet?' asked Lady +Charlotte, looking out. + +'Yes, we are not far off--the river is to our right. We shall pass St. +Wilfrid's soon.' + +The coachman turned into a street where an open-air market was going +on. The roadway and pavements were swarming; the carriage could barely +pick its way through the masses of human beings. Flaming gas-jets threw +it all into strong satanic light and shade. At the corner of a dingy +alley Rose could see a fight going on; the begrimed ragged children, +regardless of the April rain, swooped backwards and forwards under the +very hoofs of the horses, or flattened their noses against the windows +whenever the horses were forced into a walk. + +The young girl-figure in gray, with the gray feathered hat, seemed +specially to excite their notice. The glare of the street brought out +the lines of the face, the gold of the hair. The Arabs outside made +loutishly flattering remarks once or twice, and Rose, colouring, drew +back as far as she could into the carriage. Mr. Flaxman seemed not to +hear; his aunt, with that obtrusive thirst for information which is so +fashionable now among all women of position, was cross-questioning him +as to the trades and population of the district, and he was drily +responding. In reality his mind was full of a whirl of feeling, of a +wild longing to break down a futile barrier and trample on a baffling +resistance, to take that beautiful tameless creature in strong coercing +arms, scold her, crush her, love her! Why does she make happiness so +difficult? What right has she to hold devotion so cheap? He too grows +angry. 'She was _not_ in love with that spectral creature,' the inner +self declares with energy--'I will vow she never was. But she is like +all the rest--a slave to the merest forms and trappings of sentiment. +Because he _ought_ to have loved her, and didn't, because she _fancied_ +she loved him, and didn't, my love is to be an offence to her! +Monstrous--unjust!' + +Suddenly they sped past St. Wilfrid's, resplendent with lights, the +jewelled windows of the choir rising above the squalid walls and roofs +into the rainy darkness, as the mystical chapel of the Graal, with its +'torches glimmering fair,' flashed out of the mountain storm and +solitude on to Galahad's seeking eyes. + +Rose bent forward involuntarily. 'What angel singing!' she said, +dropping the window again to listen to the retreating sounds, her +artist's eye kindling. 'Did you hear it? It was the last chorus in the +St. Matthew Passion music.' + +'I did not distinguish it,' he said--'but their music is famous.' + +His tone was distant; there was no friendliness in it. It would have +been pleasant to her if he would have taken up her little remark and let +bygones be bygones. But he showed no readiness to do so. The subject +dropped, and presently he moved back to his former seat and Lady +Charlotte and he resumed their talk. Rose could not but see that his +manner towards her was much changed. She herself had compelled it, but +all the same she saw him leave her with a capricious little pang of +regret, and afterwards the drive seemed to her more tedious and the +dismal streets more dismal than before. + +She tried to forget her companions altogether. Oh! what would Robert +have to say? She was unhappy, restless. In her trouble lately it had +often pleased her to go quite alone to strange churches, where for a +moment the burden of the self had seemed lightened. But the old things +were not always congenial to her, and there were modern ferments at work +in her. No one of her family, unless it were Agnes, suspected what was +going on. But in truth the rich crude nature had been touched at last, +as Robert's had been long ago in Mr. Grey's lecture-room, by the +piercing under-voices of things--the moral message of the world. 'What +will he have to say?' she asked herself again feverishly, and as she +looked across to Mr. Flaxman she felt a childish wish to be friends +again with him, with everybody. Life was too difficult as it was, +without quarrels and misunderstandings to make it worse. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +A long street of warehouses--and at the end of it the horses slackened. + +'I saw the president of the club yesterday,' said Flaxman, looking out. +'He is an old friend of mine--a most intelligent fanatic--met him on a +Mansion House Fund committee last winter. He promised we should be +looked after. But we shall only get back seats, and you'll have to put +up with the smoking. They don't want ladies, and we shall only be there +on sufferance.' + +The carriage stopped. Mr. Flaxman guided his charges with some +difficulty through the crowd about the steps, who inspected them and +their vehicle with a frank and not over-friendly curiosity. At the door +they found a man who had been sent to look for them, and were +immediately taken possession of. He ushered them into the back of a +large bare hall, glaringly lit, lined with white brick, and hung at +intervals with political portraits and a few cheap engravings of famous +men, Jesus of Nazareth taking his turn with Buddha, Socrates, Moses, +Shakespeare, and Paul of Tarsus. + +'Can't put you any forrarder, I'm afraid,' said their guide, with a +shrug of the shoulders. 'The committee don't like strangers coming, and +Mr. Collett, he got hauled over the coals for letting you in this +evening.' + +It was a new position for Lady Charlotte to be anywhere on sufferance. +However, in the presence of three hundred smoking men, who might all of +them be political assassins in disguise for anything she knew, she +accepted her fate with meekness; and she and Rose settled themselves +into their back seat under a rough sort of gallery, glad of their veils, +and nearly blinded with the smoke. + +The hall was nearly full, and Mr. Flaxman looked curiously round upon +its occupants. The majority of them were clearly artisans--a spare, +stooping, sharp-featured race. Here and there were a knot of stalwart +dock-labourers, strongly marked out in physique from the watchmakers and +the potters, or an occasional seaman out of work, ship-steward, +boatswain, or what not, generally bronzed, quick-eyed, and comely, save +where the film of excess had already deadened colour and expression. +Almost every one had a pot of beer before him, standing on long wooden +flaps attached to the benches. The room was full of noise, coming +apparently from the farther end, where some political bravo seemed to be +provoking his neighbours. In their own vicinity the men scattered about +were for the most part tugging silently at their pipes, alternately +eyeing the clock and the new-comers. + +There was a stir of feet round the door. + +'There he is,' said Mr. Flaxman, craning round to see, and Robert +entered. + +He started as he saw them, flashed a smile to Rose, shook his head at +Mr. Flaxman, and passed up the room. + +'He looks pale and nervous,' said Lady Charlotte grimly, pouncing at +once on the unpromising side of things. 'If he breaks down are you +prepared, Hugh, to play Elisha?' + +Flaxman was far too much interested in the beginnings of the performance +to answer. + +Robert was standing forward on the platform, the chairman of the meeting +at his side, members of the committee sitting behind on either hand. A +good many men put down their pipes, and the hubbub of talk ceased. +Others smoked on stolidly. + +The chairman introduced the lecturer. The subject of the address would +be, as they already knew, 'The Claim of Jesus upon Modern Life.' It was +not very likely, he imagined, that Mr. Elsmere's opinions would square +with those dominant in the club; but, whether or no, he claimed for him, +as for everybody, a patient hearing, and the Englishman's privilege of +fair play. + +The speaker, a cabinetmaker dressed in a decent brown suit, spoke with +fluency, and at the same time with that accent of moderation and _savoir +faire_ which some Englishmen in all classes have obviously inherited +from centuries of government by discussion. Lady Charlotte, whose +Liberalism was the mere varnish of an essentially aristocratic temper, +was conscious of a certain dismay at the culture of the democracy as the +man sat down. Mr. Flaxman, glancing to the right, saw a group of men +standing, and amongst them a slight sharp-featured thread-paper of a +man, with a taller companion, whom he identified as the pair he had +noticed on the night of the story-telling. The little gasfitter was +clearly all nervous fidget and expectation; the other, large and gaunt +in figure, with a square impassive face, and close-shut lips that had a +perpetual mocking twist in the corners, stood beside him like some +clumsy modern version, in a commoner clay, of Goethe's 'spirit that +denies.' + +Robert came forward with a roll of papers in his hand. + +His first words were hardly audible. Rose felt her colour rising, Lady +Charlotte glanced at her nephew, the standing group of men cried, 'Speak +up!' The voice in the distance rose at once, braced by the touch of +difficulty, and what it said came firmly down to them. + +In after days Flaxman could not often be got to talk of the experience +of this evening. When he did he would generally say, briefly, that as an +_intellectual_ effort he had never been inclined to rank this first +public utterance very high among Elsmere's performances. The speaker's +own emotion had stood somewhat in his way. A man argues better, perhaps, +when he feels less. + +'I have often heard him put his case, as I thought, more cogently in +conversation,' Flaxman would say--though only to his most intimate +friends--'but what I never saw before or since was such an _effect of +personality_ as he produced that night. From that moment, at any rate, I +loved him, and I understood his secret!' + +Elsmere began with a few words of courteous thanks to the club for the +hearing they had promised him. + +Then he passed on to the occasion of his address--the vogue in the +district of 'certain newspapers which, I understand, are specially +relished and patronised by your association.' + +And he laid down on a table beside him the copies of the _Freethinker_ +and of _Faith and Fools_ which he had brought with him, and faced his +audience again, his hands on his sides. + +'Well! I am not here to-night to attack those newspapers. I want to +reach your sympathies if I can in another way. If there is anybody here +who takes pleasure in them, who thinks that such writing and such +witticisms as he gets purveyed to him in these sheets do really help the +cause of truth and intellectual freedom, I shall not attack his position +from the front. I shall try to undermine it. I shall aim at rousing in +him such a state of feeling as may suddenly convince him that what is +injured by writing of this sort is not the orthodox Christian, or the +Church, or Jesus of Nazareth, but always and inevitably the man who +writes it and the man who loves it! His mind is possessed of an +inflaming and hateful image, which drives him to mockery and violence. I +want to replace it, if I can, by one of calm, of beauty and tenderness, +which may drive him to humility and sympathy. And this, indeed, is the +only way in which opinion is ever really altered--by the substitution of +one mental picture for another. + +'But in the first place,' resumed the speaker, after a moment's pause, +changing his note a little, 'a word about myself. I am not here to-night +quite in the position of the casual stranger, coming down to your +district for the first time. As some of you know, I am endeavouring to +make what is practically a settlement among you, asking you working-men +to teach me, if you will, what you have to teach as to the wants and +prospects of your order, and offering you in return whatever there is in +me which may be worth your taking. Well, I imagine I should look at a +man who preferred a claim of that sort with some closeness! You may well +ask me for "antecedents," and I should like, if I may, to give them to +you very shortly. + +'Well, then, though I came down to this place under the wing of Mr. +Edwardes' (some cheering) 'who is so greatly liked and respected here, I +am not a Unitarian, nor am I an English Churchman. A year ago I was the +vicar of an English country parish, where I should have been proud, so +far as personal happiness went, to spend my life. Last autumn I left it +and resigned my orders because I could no longer accept the creed of the +English Church.' Unconsciously the thin dignified figure drew itself up, +the voice took a certain dryness. All this was distasteful, but the +orator's instinct was imperious. + +As he spoke about a score of pipes which had till now been active in +Flaxman's neighbourhood went down. The silence in the room became +suddenly of a perceptibly different quality. + +'Since then I have joined no other religious association. But it is +not--God forbid!--because there is nothing left me to believe, but +because in this transition England it is well for a man who has broken +with the old things, to be very _patient_. No good can come of forcing +opinion or agreement prematurely. A generation, nay, more, may have to +spend itself in mere waiting and preparing for those new leaders and +those new forms of corporate action which any great revolution of +opinion, such as that we are now living through, has always produced in +the past, and will, we are justified in believing, produce again. But +the hour and the men will come, and "they also serve who only stand and +wait!"' + +Voice and look had kindled into fire. The consciousness of his audience +was passing from him--the world of ideas was growing clearer. + +'So much, then, for personalities of one sort. There are some of +another, however, which I must touch upon for a moment. I am to speak to +you to-night of the Jesus of history, but not only as an historian. +History is good, but religion is better!--and if Jesus of Nazareth +concerned me, and, in my belief, concerned you, only as an historical +figure, I should not be here to-night. + +'But if I am to talk religion to you, and I have begun by telling you I +am not this and not that, it seems to me that for mere clearness' sake, +for the sake of that round and whole image of thought which I want to +present to you, you must let me run through a preliminary confession of +faith--as short and simple as I can make it. You must let me describe +certain views of the universe and of man's place in it, which make the +framework, as it were, into which I shall ask you to fit the picture of +Jesus which will come after.' + +Robert stood a moment considering. An instant's nervousness, a momentary +sign of self-consciousness, would have broken the spell and set the room +against him. He showed neither. + +'My friends,' he said at last, speaking to the crowded benches of London +workmen with the same simplicity he would have used towards his boys at +Murewell, 'the man who is addressing you to-night believes in _God_; and +in _Conscience_, which is God's witness in the soul; and in +_Experience_, which is at once the record and the instrument of man's +education at God's hands. He places his whole trust, for life and death, +"_in God the Father Almighty_"--in that force at the root of things +which is revealed to us whenever a man helps his neighbour, or a mother +denies herself for her child; whenever a soldier dies without a murmur +for his country, or a sailor puts out in the darkness to rescue the +perishing; whenever a workman throws mind and conscience into his work, +or a statesman labours not for his own gain but for that of the State! +He believes in an Eternal Goodness--and an Eternal Mind--of which Nature +and Man are the continuous and the only revelation....' + +The room grew absolutely still. And into the silence there fell, one by +one, the short terse sentences, in which the seer, the believer, +struggled to express what God has been, is, and will ever be to the soul +which trusts Him. In them the whole effort of the speaker was really to +restrain, to moderate, to depersonalise the voice of faith. But the +intensity of each word burnt it into the hearer as it was spoken. Even +Lady Charlotte turned a little pale--the tears stood in her eyes. + +Then, from the witness of God in the soul, and in the history of man's +moral life, Elsmere turned to the glorification of _Experience_, 'of +that unvarying and rational order of the world which has been the +appointed instrument of man's training since life and thought began.' + +'_There_,' he said slowly, 'in the unbroken sequences of nature, in the +physical history of the world, in the long history of man, physical, +intellectual, moral--_there_ lies the revelation of God. There is no +other, my friends!' + +Then, while the room hung on his words, he entered on a brief exposition +of the text, '_Miracles do not happen_,' restating Hume's old argument, +and adding to it some of the most cogent of those modern arguments drawn +from literature, from history, from the comparative study of religions +and religious evidence, which were not practically at Hume's disposal, +but which are now affecting the popular mind as Hume's reasoning could +never have affected it. + +'We are now able to show how miracle, or the belief in it, which is the +same thing, comes into being. The study of miracle in all nations, and +under all conditions, yields everywhere the same results. Miracle may +be the child of imagination, of love, nay, of a passionate sincerity, +but invariably it lives with ignorance and is withered by knowledge!' + +And then, with lightning unexpectedness, he turned upon his audience, as +though the ardent soul reacted at once against a strain of mere +negation. + +'But do not let yourselves imagine for an instant that, because in a +rational view of history there is no place for a Resurrection and +Ascension, therefore you may profitably allow yourself a mean and +miserable mirth of _this_ sort over the past!'--and his outstretched +hand struck the newspapers beside him with passion, 'Do not imagine for +an instant that what is binding, adorable, beautiful in that past is +done away with when miracle is given up! No, thank God! We still "live +by admiration, hope, and love." God only draws closer, great men become +greater, human life more wonderful as miracle disappears. Woe to you if +you cannot see it!--it is the testing truth of our day. + +'And besides--do you suppose that mere violence, mere invective, and +savage mockery ever accomplished anything--nay, what is more to the +point, ever _destroyed_ anything in human history? No--an idea cannot be +killed from without--it can only be supplanted, transformed, by another +idea, and that one of equal virtue and magic. Strange paradox! In the +moral world you cannot pull down except by gentleness--you cannot +revolutionise except by sympathy. Jesus only superseded Judaism by +absorbing and recreating all that was best in it. There are no +inexplicable gaps and breaks in the story of humanity. The religion of +to-day, with all its faults and mistakes, will go on unshaken so long as +there is nothing else of equal loveliness and potency to put in its +place. The Jesus of the churches will remain paramount so long as the +man of to-day imagines himself dispensed by any increase of knowledge +from loving the Jesus of history. + +'But _why_? you will ask me. What does the Jesus of history matter to +me?' + +And so he was brought to the place of great men in the development of +mankind--to the part played in the human story by those lives in which +men have seen all their noblest thoughts of God, of duty, and of law +embodied, realised before them with a shining and incomparable beauty. + +'... You think--because it is becoming plain to the modern eye that the +ignorant love of his first followers wreathed his life in legend, that +therefore you can escape from Jesus of Nazareth, you can put him aside +as though he had never been? Folly! Do what you will, you cannot escape +him. His life and death underlie our institutions as the alphabet +underlies our literature. Just as the lives of Buddha and of Mohammed +are wrought ineffaceably into the civilisation of Africa and Asia, so +the life of Jesus is wrought ineffaceably into the higher civilisation, +the nobler social conceptions of Europe. It is wrought into your being +and into mine. We are what we are to-night, as Englishmen and as +citizens, largely because a Galilean peasant was born and grew to +manhood, and preached, and loved, and died. And you think that a fact so +tremendous can be just scoffed away--that we can get rid of it, and of +our share in it, by a ribald paragraph and a caricature! + +'No. Your hatred and your ridicule are powerless. And thank God they are +powerless. There is no wanton waste in the moral world, any more than in +the material. There is only fruitful change and beneficent +transformation. Granted that the true story of Jesus of Nazareth was +from the beginning obscured by error and mistake; granted that those +errors and mistakes which were once the strength of Christianity are now +its weakness, and by the slow march and sentence of time are now +threatening, unless we can clear them away, to lessen the hold of Jesus +on the love and remembrance of man. What then? The fact is merely a call +to you and me, who recognise it, to go back to the roots of things, to +reconceive the Christ, to bring him afresh into our lives, to make the +life so freely given for man minister again in new ways to man's new +needs. Every great religion is, in truth, a concentration of great +ideas, capable, as all ideas are, of infinite expansion and adaptation. +And woe to our human weakness if it loose its hold one instant before it +must on any of those rare and precious possessions which have helped it +in the past, and may again inspire it in the future! + +'_To reconceive the Christ!_ It is the special task of our age, though +in some sort and degree it has been the ever-recurring task of Europe +since the beginning.' + +He paused, and then very simply, and so as to be understood by those who +heard him, he gave a rapid sketch of that great operation worked by the +best intellect of Europe during the last half-century--broadly +speaking--on the facts and documents of primitive Christianity. From all +sides and by the help of every conceivable instrument those facts have +been investigated, and now at last the great result--'the revivified +reconceived truth'--seems ready to emerge! Much may still be known--much +can never be known; but if we will, we may now discern the true features +of Jesus of Nazareth, as no generation but our own has been able to +discern them, since those who had seen and handled passed away. + +'Let me try, however feebly, and draw it afresh for you, that life of +lives, that story of stories, as the labour of our own age in particular +has patiently revealed it to us. Come back with me through the +centuries; let us try and see the Christ of Galilee and the Christ of +Jerusalem as he was, before a credulous love and Jewish tradition and +Greek subtlety had at once dimmed and glorified the truth. Ah! do what +we will, it is so scanty and poor, this knowledge of ours, compared with +all that we yearn to know--but, such as it is, let me, very humbly and +very tentatively, endeavour to put it before you.' + +At this point Flaxman's attention was suddenly distracted by a stir +round the door of entrance on his left hand. Looking round, he saw a +Ritualist priest, in cassock and cloak, disputing in hurried undertones +with the men about the door. At last he gained his point apparently, for +the men, with half-angry, half-quizzing looks at each other, allowed him +to come in, and he found a seat. Flaxman was greatly struck by the +face--by its ascetic beauty, the stern and yet delicate whiteness and +emaciation of it. He sat with both hands resting on the stick he held in +front of him, intently listening, the perspiration of physical weakness +on his brow and round his finely curved mouth. Clearly he could hardly +see the lecturer, for the room had become inconveniently crowded, and +the men about him were mostly standing. + +'One of the St. Wilfrid's priests, I suppose,' Flaxman said to himself. +'What on earth is he doing _dans cette galere_? Are we to have a +disputation? That would be dramatic.' + +He had no attention, however, to spare, and the intruder was promptly +forgotten. When he turned back to the platform he found that Robert, +with Mackay's help, had hung on a screen to his right, four or five +large drawings of Nazareth, of the Lake of Gennesaret, of Jerusalem, and +the Temple of Herod, of the ruins of that synagogue on the probable site +of Capernaum in which conceivably Jesus may have stood. They were bold +and striking, and filled the bare hall at once with suggestions of the +East. He had used them often at Murewell. Then, adopting a somewhat +different tone, he plunged into the life of Jesus. He brought to it all +his trained historical power, all his story-telling faculty, all his +sympathy with the needs of feeling. And bit by bit, as the quick nervous +sentences issued and struck, each like the touch of a chisel, the +majestic figure emerged, set against its natural background, instinct +with some fraction at least of the magic of reality, most human, most +persuasive, most tragic. He brought out the great words of the new +faith, to which, whatever may be their literal origin, Jesus, and Jesus +only, gave currency and immortal force. He dwelt on the magic, the +permanence, the expansiveness, of the young Nazarene's central +conception--the spiritualised, universalised 'Kingdom of God.' Elsmere's +thought, indeed, knew nothing of a perfect man, as it knew nothing of an +incarnate God; he shrank from nothing that he believed true; but every +limitation, every reserve he allowed himself, did but make the whole +more poignantly real, and the claim of Jesus more penetrating. + +'The world has grown since Jesus preached in Galilee and Judaea. We +cannot learn the _whole_ of God's lesson from him now--nay, we could not +then! But all that is most essential to man--all that saves the soul, +all that purifies the heart--that he has still for you and me, as he +had it for the men and women of his own time.' + +Then he came to the last scenes. His voice sank a little; his notes +dropped from his hand; and the silence grew oppressive. The dramatic +force, the tender passionate insight, the fearless modernness with which +the story was told, made it almost unbearable. Those listening saw the +trial, the streets of Jerusalem, that desolate place outside the +northern gate; they were spectators of the torture, they heard the last +cry. No one present had ever so seen, so heard before. Rose had hidden +her face. Flaxman for the first time forgot to watch the audience; the +men had forgotten each other; and for the first time that night, in many +a cold embittered heart, there was born that love of the Son of Man +which Nathaniel felt, and John, and Mary of Bethany, and which has in it +now, as then, the promise of the future. + +'"_He laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of a rock, and he +rolled a stone against the door of the tomb._" The ashes of Jesus of +Nazareth mingled with the earth of Palestine-- + + '"Far hence he lies + In the lorn Syrian town, + And on his grave, with shining eyes, + The Syrian stars look down."' + +He stopped. The melancholy cadence of the verse died away. Then a gleam +broke over the pale exhausted face--a gleam of extraordinary sweetness. + +'And in the days and weeks that followed the devout and passionate fancy +of a few mourning Galileans begat the exquisite fable of the +Resurrection. How natural--and amid all its falseness--how true, is that +naive and contradictory story! The rapidity with which it spread is a +measure of many things. It is, above all, a measure of the greatness of +Jesus, of the force with which he had drawn to himself the hearts and +imaginations of men.... + +'And now, my friends, what of all this? If these things I have been +saying to you are true, what is the upshot of them for you and me? +Simply this, as I conceive it--that instead of wasting your time, and +degrading your souls, by indulgence in such grime as this'--and he +pointed to the newspapers--'it is your urgent business and mine--at this +moment--to do our very _utmost_ to bring this life of Jesus, our +precious invaluable possession as a people, back into some real and +cogent relation with our modern lives and beliefs and hopes. Do not +answer me that such an effort is a mere dream and futility, conceived in +the vague, apart from reality--that men must have something to worship, +and that if they cannot worship Jesus they will not trouble to love him. +Is the world desolate with God still in it, and does it rest merely with +us to love or not to love? Love and revere _something_ we must, if we +are to be men and not beasts. At all times and in all nations, as I +have tried to show you, man has helped himself by the constant and +passionate memory of those great ones of his race who have spoken to him +most audibly of God and of eternal hope. And for us Europeans and +Englishmen, as I have also tried to show you, history and inheritance +have decided. If we turn away from the true Jesus of Nazareth because he +has been disfigured and misrepresented by the Churches, we turn away +from that in which our weak wills and desponding souls are meant to find +their most obvious and natural help and inspiration--from that symbol of +the Divine, which, of necessity, means most to _us_. No! give him back +your hearts--be ashamed that you have ever forgotten your debt to him! +Let combination and brotherhood do for the newer and simpler faith what +they did once for the old--let them give it a practical shape, a +practical grip on human life.... Then we too shall have our Easter!--we +too shall have the right to say, _He is not here, he is risen._ Not +here--in legend, in miracle, in the beautiful outworn forms and +crystallisations of older thought. _He is risen_--in a wiser reverence +and a more reasonable love; risen in new forms of social help inspired +by his memory, called afresh by his name! Risen--if you and your +children will it--in a church or company of the faithful, over the gates +of which two sayings of man's past, into which man's present has +breathed new meanings, shall be written:-- + + '_In Thee, O Eternal, have I put my trust:_' + +and-- + + '_This do in remembrance of Me._' + +The rest was soon over. The audience woke from the trance in which it +had been held with a sudden burst of talk and movement. In the midst of +it, and as the majority of the audience were filing out into the +adjoining rooms, the gasfitter's tall companion Andrews mounted the +platform, while the gasfitter himself, with an impatient shrug, pushed +his way into the outgoing crowd. Andrews went slowly and deliberately to +work, dealing out his long cantankerous sentences with a nasal _sang +froid_ which seemed to change in a moment the whole aspect and +temperature of things. He remarked that Mr. Elsmere had talked of what +great scholars had done to clear up this matter of Christ and +Christianity. Well, he was free to maintain that old Tom Paine was as +good a scholar as any of 'em, and most of them in that hall knew what +_he_ thought about it. Tom Paine hadn't anything to say against Jesus +Christ, and he hadn't. He was a workman and a fine sort of man, and if +he'd been alive now he'd have been a Socialist, 'as most of us are,' and +he'd have made it hot for the rich loafers, and the sweaters, and the +middlemen, 'as we'd like to make it hot for 'em.' But as for those +people who got up the Church--Mythologists Tom Paine called 'em--and the +miracles, and made an uncommonly good thing out of it, pecuniarily +speaking, he didn't see what they'd got to do with keeping up, or +mending, or preserving _their_ precious bit of work. The world had found +'em out, and serve 'em right. + +And he wound up with a fierce denunciation of priests, not without a +harsh savour and eloquence, which was much clapped by the small knot of +workmen amongst whom he had been standing. + +Then there followed a Socialist--an eager, ugly, black-bearded little +fellow, who preached the absolute necessity of doing without 'any cultus +whatsoever,' threw scorn on both the Christians and the Positivists for +refusing so to deny themselves, and appealed earnestly to his group of +hearers 'to help in bringing religion back from heaven to earth, where +it belongs.' Mr. Elsmere's new church, if he ever got it, would only be +a fresh instrument in the hands of the _bourgeoisie_. And when the +people had got their rights and brought down the capitalists, they were +not going to be such fools as put their necks under the heel of what +were called 'the educated classes.' The people who wrote the newspapers +Mr. Elsmere objected to, knew quite enough for the working-man--and +people should not be too smooth-spoken; what the working class wanted +beyond everything just now was _grit_. + +A few other short speeches followed, mostly of the common Secularist +type, in defence of the newspapers attacked. But the defence, on the +whole, was shuffling and curiously half-hearted. Robert, sitting by with +his head on his hand, felt that there, at any rate, his onslaught had +told. + +He said a few words in reply, in a low husky voice, without a trace of +his former passion, and the meeting broke up. The room had quickly +filled when it was known that he was up again; and as he descended the +steps of the platform, after shaking hands with the chairman, the +hundreds present broke into a sudden burst of cheering. Lady Charlotte +pressed forward to him through the crowd, offering to take him home. +'Come with us, Mr. Elsmere: you look like a ghost.' But he shook his +head, smiling. 'No, thank you, Lady Charlotte--I must have some air,' +and he took her out on his arm, while Flaxman followed with Rose. + +It once occurred to Flaxman to look round for the priest he had seen +come in. But there were no signs of him. 'I had an idea he would have +spoken,' he thought. 'Just as well, perhaps. We should have had a row.' + +Lady Charlotte threw herself back in the carriage as they drove off, +with a long breath, and the inward reflection, 'So his wife wouldn't +come and hear him! Must be a woman with a character that--a Strafford in +petticoats!' + + * * * * * + +Robert turned up the street to the City, the tall slight figure seeming +to shrink together as he walked. After his passionate effort, +indescribable depression had overtaken him. + +'Words--words!' he said to himself, striking out his hands in a kind of +feverish protest, as he strode along, against his own powerlessness, +against that weight of the present and the actual which seems to the +enthusiast alternately light as air, or heavy as the mass of AEtna on the +breast of Enceladus. + +Suddenly, at the corner of a street, a man's figure in a long black robe +stopped him and laid a hand on his arm. + +'Newcome!' cried Robert, standing still. + +'I was there,' said the other, bending forward and looking close into +his eyes. 'I heard almost all. I went to confront, to denounce you!' + +By the light of a lamp not far off Robert caught the attenuated +whiteness and sharpness of the well-known face, to which weeks of +fasting and mystical excitement had given a kind of unearthly +remoteness. He gathered himself together with an inward groan. He felt +as though there were no force in him at that moment wherewith to meet +reproaches, to beat down fanaticism. The pressure on nerve and strength +seemed unbearable. + +Newcome, watching him with eagle eye, saw the sudden shrinking and +hesitation. He had often in old days felt the same sense of power over +the man who yet, in what seemed his weakness, had always escaped him in +the end. + +'I went to denounce,' he continued, in a strange tense voice, 'and the +Lord refused it to me. He kept me watching for you here. These words are +not mine I speak. I waited patiently in that room till the Lord should +deliver His enemy into my hand. My wrath was hot against the deserter +that could not even desert in silence--hot against his dupes. Then +suddenly words came to me--they have come to me before, they burn up the +very heart and marrow in me--"_Who is he that saith, and it cometh to +pass, and the Lord commandeth it not?_" There they were in my ears, +written on the walls--the air----' + +The hand dropped from Robert's arm. A dull look of defeat, of regret, +darkened the gleaming eyes. They were standing in a quiet deserted +street, but through a side opening the lights, the noise, the turbulence +of the open-air market came drifting to them through the rainy +atmosphere which blurred and magnified everything. + +'Ay, after days and nights in His most blessed sanctuary,' Newcome +resumed slowly, 'I came by His commission, as I thought, to fight His +battle with a traitor! And at the last moment His strength, which was in +me, went from me. I sat there dumb; His hand was heavy upon me. His will +be done!' + +The voice sank; the priest drew his thin shaking hand across his eyes, +as though the awe of a mysterious struggle were still upon him. Then he +turned again to Elsmere, his face softening, radiating. + +'Elsmere, take the sign, the message! I thought it was given to me to +declare the Lord's wrath. Instead, He sends you once more by me, even +now--even fresh from this new defiance of His mercy, the tender offer of +His grace! He lies at rest to-night, my brother'--what sweetness in the +low vibrating tones!--'after all the anguish. Let me draw you down on +your knees beside Him. It is you, you, who have helped to drive in the +nails, to embitter the agony! It is you who in His loneliness have been +robbing Him of the souls that should be His! It is you who have been +doing your utmost to make His Cross and Passion of no effect. Oh, let it +break your heart to think of it! Watch by Him to-night, my friend, my +brother, and to-morrow let the risen Lord reclaim His own!' + +Never had Robert seen any mortal face so persuasively beautiful; never +surely did saint or ascetic plead with a more penetrating gentleness. +After the storm of those opening words the change was magical. The tears +stood in Elsmere's eyes. But his quick insight, in spite of himself, +divined the subtle natural facts behind the outburst, the strained +physical state, the irritable brain--all the consequences of a long +defiance of physical and mental law. The priest repelled him, the man +drew him like a magnet. + +'What can I say to you, Newcome?' he cried despairingly. 'Let me say +nothing, dear old friend! I am tired out; so, I expect, are you. I know +what this week has been to you. Walk with me a little. Leave these great +things alone. We cannot agree. Be content--God knows! Tell me about the +old place and the people. I long for news of them.' + +A sort of shudder passed through his companion. Newcome stood wrestling +with himself. It was like the slow departure of a possessing force. Then +he sombrely assented, and they turned towards the City. But his answers, +as Robert questioned him, were sharp and mechanical, and presently it +became evident that the demands of the ordinary talk to which Elsmere +rigorously held him were more than he could bear. + +As they reached St. Paul's, towering into the watery moonlight of the +clouded sky, he stopped abruptly and said good-night. + +'You came to me in the spirit of war,' said Robert, with some emotion, +as he held his hand; 'give me instead the grasp of peace!' + +The spell of his manner, his presence, prevailed at last. A melancholy +quivering smile dawned on the priest's delicate lip. + +'God bless you--God restore you!' he said sadly, and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +A week later Elsmere was startled to find himself detained, after his +story-telling, by a trio of workmen, asking on behalf of some thirty or +forty members of the North R---- Club that he would give them a course +of lectures on the New Testament. One of them was the gasfitter Charles +Richards; another was the watchmaker Lestrange, who had originally +challenged Robert to deliver himself; and the third was a tough old +Scotchman of sixty with a philosophical turn, under whose spoutings of +Hume and Locke, of Reid and Dugald Stewart, delivered in the shrillest +of cracked voices, the Club had writhed many an impatient half-hour on +debating nights. He had an unexpected artistic gift, a kind of 'sport' +as compared with the rest of his character, which made him a valued +designer in the pottery works; but his real interests were speculative +and argumentative, concerned with 'common nawtions and the praimary +elements of reason,' and the appearance of Robert in the district seemed +to offer him at last a foeman worthy of his steel. Elsmere shrewdly +suspected that the last two looked forward to any teaching he might give +mostly as a new and favourable exercising ground for their own wits; but +he took the risk, gladly accepted the invitation, and fixed Sunday +afternoons for a weekly New Testament lecture. + +His first lecture, which he prepared with great care, was delivered to +thirty-seven men a fortnight later. It was on the political and social +state of Palestine and the East at the time of Christ's birth; and +Robert, who was as fervent a believer in 'large maps' as Lord Salisbury, +had prepared a goodly store of them for the occasion, together with a +number of drawings and photographs which formed part of the collection +he had been gradually making since his own visit to the Holy Land. There +was nothing he laid more stress on than these helps to the eye and +imagination in dealing with the Bible. He was accustomed to maintain in +his arguments with Hugh Flaxman that the orthodox traditional teaching +of Christianity would become impossible as soon as it should be the +habit to make a free and modern use of history and geography and social +material in connection with the Gospels. Nothing tends so much, he would +say, to break down the irrational barrier which men have raised about +this particular tract of historical space, nothing helps so much to let +in the light and air of scientific thought upon it, and therefore +nothing prepares the way so effectively for a series of new conceptions. + +By a kind of natural selection Richards became Elsmere's chief helper +and adjutant in the Sunday lectures,--with regard to all such matters as +beating up recruits, keeping guard over portfolios, handing round maps +and photographs, etc.,--supplanting in this function the jealous and +sensitive Mackay, who, after his original opposition, had now arrived at +regarding Robert as his own particular property, and the lecturer's +quick smile of thanks for services rendered as his own especial right. +The bright, quicksilvery, irascible little workman, however, was +irresistible and had his way. He had taken a passion for Robert as for a +being of another order and another world. In the discussions which +generally followed the lecture he showed a receptiveness, an +intelligence, which were in reality a matter not of the mind but of the +heart. He loved, therefore he understood. At the club he stood for +Elsmere with a quivering spasmodic eloquence, as against Andrews and the +Secularists. One thing only puzzled Robert. Among all the little +fellow's sallies and indiscretions, which were not infrequent, no +reference to his home life was ever included. Here he kept even Robert +absolutely at arm's length. Robert knew that he was married and had +children, nothing more. + +The old Scotchman, Macdonald, came out after the first lecture somewhat +crestfallen. + +'Not the sort of stooff I'd expected!' he said, with a shade of +perplexity on the rugged face. 'He doosn't talk eneuf in the _aa_bstract +for me.' + +But he went again, and the second lecture, on the origin of the Gospels, +got hold of him, especially as it supplied him with a whole armoury of +new arguments in support of Hume's doctrine of conscience, and in +defiance of 'that blatin' creetur, Reid.' The thesis with which Robert, +drawing on some of the stores supplied him by the squire's book, began +his account--_i.e._ the gradual growth within the limits of history of +man's capacity for telling the exact truth--fitted in, to the +Scotchman's thinking, so providentially with his own favourite +experimental doctrines as against the 'intueetion' folks, 'who will have +it that a babby's got as moch mind as Mr. Gladstone, ef it only knew +it!' that afterwards he never missed a lecture. + +Lestrange was more difficult. He had the inherited temperament of the +Genevese _frondeur_, which made Geneva the headquarters of Calvinism in +the sixteenth century, and bids fair to make her the headquarters of +continental radicalism in the nineteenth. Robert never felt his wits so +much stretched and sharpened as when after the lecture Lestrange was +putting questions and objections with an acrid subtlety and persistence +worthy of a descendant of that burgher class which first built up the +Calvinistic system and then produced the destroyer of it in Rousseau. +Robert bore his heckling, however, with great patience and adroitness. +He had need of all he knew, as Murray Edwardes had warned him. But +luckily he knew a great deal; his thought was clearing and settling +month by month, and whatever he may have lost at any moment by the turn +of an argument, he recovered immediately afterwards by the force of +personality, and of a single-mindedness in which there was never a trace +of personal grasping. + +Week by week the lecture became more absorbing to him, the men more +pliant, his hold on them firmer. His disinterestedness, his brightness +and resource, perhaps, too, the signs about him of a light and frail +physical organisation, the novelty of his position, the inventiveness of +his method, gave him little by little an immense power in the place. +After the first two lectures Murray Edwardes became his constant and +enthusiastic hearer on Sunday afternoons, and, catching some of Robert's +ways and spirit, he gradually brought his own chapel and teaching more +and more into line with the Elgood Street undertaking. So that the +venture of the two men began to take ever larger proportions; and, +kindled by the growing interest and feeling about him, dreams began to +rise in Elsmere's mind which as yet he hardly dared to cherish; which +came and went, however, weaving a substance for themselves out of each +successive incident and effort. + +Meanwhile he was at work on an average three evenings in the week +besides the Sunday. In West End drawing-rooms his personal gift had +begun to tell no less than in this crowded, squalid East; and as his +aims became known, other men, finding the thoughts of their own hearts +revealed in him, or touched with that social compunction which is one of +the notes of our time, came down and became his helpers. Of all the +social projects of which that Elgood Street room became the centre, +Elsmere was, in some sense, the life and inspiration. But it was not +these projects themselves which made this period of his life remarkable. +London at the present moment, if it be honeycombed with vice and misery, +is also honeycombed with the labour of an ever-expanding charity. Week +by week men and women of like gifts and energies with Elsmere spend +themselves, as he did, in the constant effort to serve and to alleviate. +What _was_ noticeable, what _was_ remarkable in this work of his, was +the spirit, the religious passion which, radiating from him, began after +a while, to kindle the whole body of men about him. It was from his +Sunday lectures and his talks with the children, boys and girls, who +came in after the lecture to spend a happy hour and a half with him on +Sunday afternoons, that in later years hundreds of men and women will +date the beginnings of a new absorbing life. There came a time, indeed, +when, instead of meeting criticism by argument, Robert was able simply +to point to accomplished facts. 'You ask me,' he would say in effect, +'to prove to you that men can love, can make a new and fruitful use, for +daily life and conduct, of a merely human Christ. Go amongst our men, +talk to our children, and satisfy yourself. A little while ago scores of +these men either hated the very name of Christianity or were entirely +indifferent to it. To scores of them now the name of the teacher of +Nazareth, the victim of Jerusalem, is dear and sacred; his life, his +death, his words, are becoming once more a constant source of moral +effort and spiritual hope. See for yourself!' + +However, we are anticipating. Let us go back to May. + +One beautiful morning Robert was sitting working in his study, his +windows open to the breezy blue sky and the budding plane-trees outside, +when the door was thrown open and 'Mr. Wendover' was announced. + +The squire entered; but what a shrunken and aged squire! The gait was +feeble, the bearing had lost all its old erectness, the bronzed strength +of the face had given place to a waxen and ominous pallor. Robert, +springing up with joy to meet the great gust of Murewell air which +seemed to blow about him with the mention of the squire's name, was +struck, arrested. He guided his guest to a chair with an almost filial +carefulness. + +'I don't believe, Squire,' he exclaimed, 'you ought to be doing +this--wandering about London by yourself!' + +But the squire, as silent and angular as ever when anything personal to +himself was concerned, would take no notice of the implied anxiety and +sympathy. He grasped his umbrella between his knees with a pair of brown +twisted hands, and, sitting very upright, looked critically round the +room. Robert, studying the dwindled figure, remembered with a pang the +saying of another Oxford scholar, _a propos_ of the death of a young man +of extraordinary promise, '_What learning has perished with him! How +vain seems all toil to acquire!_'--and the words, as they passed through +his mind, seemed to him to ring another death-knell. + +But after the first painful impression he could not help losing himself +in the pleasure of the familiar face, the Murewell associations. + +'How is the village, and the Institute? And what sort of man is my +successor--the man, I mean, who came after Armitstead?' + +'I had him once to dinner,' said the squire briefly; 'he made a false +quantity, and asked me to subscribe to the Church Missionary Society. I +haven't seen him since. He and the village have been at loggerheads +about the Institute, I believe. He wanted to turn out the dissenters. +Bateson came to me, and we circumvented him, of course. But the man's an +ass. Don't talk of him!' + +Robert sighed a long sigh. Was all his work undone? It wrung his heart +to remember the opening of the Institute, the ardour of his boys. He +asked a few questions about individuals, but soon gave it up as +hopeless. The squire neither knew nor cared. + +'And Mrs. Darcy?' + +'My sister had tea in her thirtieth summer-house last Sunday,' remarked +the squire grimly. 'She wished me to communicate the fact to you and +Mrs. Elsmere. Also, that the worst novel of the century will be out in a +fortnight, and she trusts to you to see it well reviewed in all the +leading journals.' + +Robert laughed, but it was not very easy to laugh. There was a sort of +ghastly undercurrent in the squire's sarcasms that effectually deprived +them of anything mirthful. + +'And your book?' + +'Is in abeyance. I shall bequeath you the manuscript in my will, to do +what you like with.' + +'Squire!' + +'Quite true! If you had stayed, I should have finished it, I suppose. +But after a certain age the toil of spinning cobwebs entirely out of his +own brain becomes too much for a man.' + +It was the first thing of the sort that iron mouth had ever said to him. +Elsmere was painfully touched. + +'You must not--you shall not give it up,' he urged. 'Publish the first +part alone, and ask me for any help you please.' + +The squire shook his head. + +'Let it be. Your paper in the _Nineteenth Century_ showed me that the +best thing I can do is to hand on my materials to you. Though I am not +sure that when you have got them you will make the best use of them. You +and Grey between you call yourselves Liberals, and imagine yourselves +reformers, and all the while you are doing nothing but playing into the +hands of the Blacks. All this theistic philosophy of yours only means so +much grist to their mill in the end.' + +'They don't see it in that light themselves,' said Robert, smiling. + +'No,' returned the squire, 'because most men are puzzle-heads. Why,' he +added, looking darkly at Robert, while the great head fell forward on +his breast in the familiar Murewell attitude, 'why can't you do your +work and let the preaching alone?' + +'Because,' said Robert, 'the preaching seems to me my work. There is the +great difference between us, Squire. You look upon knowledge as an end +in itself. It may be so. But to me knowledge has always been valuable +first and foremost for its bearing on life.' + +'Fatal twist that,' returned the squire harshly. 'Yes, I know; it was +always in you. Well, are you happy? does this new crusade of yours give +you pleasure?' + +'Happiness,' replied Robert, leaning against the chimneypiece and +speaking in a low voice, 'is always relative. No one knows it better +than you. Life is full of oppositions. But the work takes my whole heart +and all my energies.' + +The squire looked at him in disapproving silence for a while. + +'You will bury your life in it miserably,' he said at last; 'it will be +a toil of Sisyphus leaving no trace behind it; whereas such a book as +you might write, if you gave your life to it, might live and work, and +harry the enemy when you are gone.' + +Robert forbore the natural retort. + +The squire went round his library, making remarks, with all the caustic +shrewdness natural to him, on the new volumes that Robert had acquired +since their walks and talks together. + +'The Germans,' he said at last, putting back a book into the shelves +with a new accent of distaste and weariness, 'are beginning to founder +in the sea of their own learning. Sometimes I think I will read no more +German. It is a nation of learned fools, none of whom ever sees an inch +beyond his own professorial nose.' + +Then he stayed to luncheon, and Catherine, moved by many +feelings--perhaps in subtle striving against her own passionate sense of +wrong at this man's hands--was kind to him, and talked and smiled, +indeed, so much that the squire for the first time in his life took +individual notice of her, and as he parted with Elsmere in the hall made +the remark that Mrs. Elsmere seemed to like London, to which Robert, +busy in an opportune search for his guest's coat, made no reply. + +'When are you coming to Murewell?' the squire said to him abruptly, as +he stood at the door muffled up as though it were December. 'There are a +good many points in that last article you want talking to about. Come +next month with Mrs. Elsmere.' + +Robert drew a long breath, inspired by many feelings. + +'I will come, but not yet. I must get broken in here more thoroughly +first. Murewell touches me too deeply, and my wife. You are going abroad +in the summer, you say. Let me come to you in the autumn.' + +The squire said nothing, and went his way, leaning heavily on his stick, +across the square. Robert felt himself a brute to let him go, and almost +ran after him. + +That evening Robert was disquieted by the receipt of a note from a young +fellow of St. Anselm's, an intimate friend and occasional secretary of +Grey. Grey, the writer said, had received Robert's last letter, was +deeply interested in his account of his work, and begged him to write +again. He would have written, but that he was himself in the doctor's +hands, suffering from various ills, probably connected with an attack of +malarial fever which had befallen him in Rome the year before. + +Catherine found him poring over the letter, and, as it seemed to her, +oppressed by an anxiety out of all proportion to the news itself. + +'They are not really troubled, I think,' she said, kneeling down beside +him, and laying her cheek against his. 'He will soon get over it, +Robert.' + +But, alas! this mood, the tender characteristic mood of the old +Catherine, was becoming rarer and rarer with her. As the spring +expanded, as the sun and the leaves came back, poor Catherine's temper +had only grown more wintry and more rigid. Her life was full of moments +of acute suffering. Never, for instance, did she forget the evening of +Robert's lecture to the club. All the time he was away she had sat +brooding by herself in the drawing-room, divining with a bitter +clairvoyance all that scene in which he was taking part, her being +shaken with a tempest of misery and repulsion. And together with that +torturing image of a glaring room in which her husband, once Christ's +loyal minister, was employing all his powers of mind and speech to make +it easier for ignorant men to desert and fight against the Lord who +bought them, there mingled a hundred memories of her father which were +now her constant companions. In proportion as Robert and she became +more divided, her dead father resumed a ghostly hold upon her. There +were days when she went about rigid and silent, in reality living +altogether in the past, among the gray farms, the crags, and the stony +ways of the mountains. + +At such times her mind would be full of pictures of her father's +ministrations--his talks with the shepherds on the hills, with the women +at their doors, his pale dreamer's face beside some wild deathbed, +shining with the Divine message, the 'visions' which to her awestruck +childish sense would often seem to hold him in their silent walks among +the misty hills. + +Robert, taught by many small indications, came to recognise these states +of feeling in her with a dismal clearness, and to shrink more and more +sensitively while they lasted from any collision with her. He kept his +work, his friends, his engagements to himself, talking resolutely of +other things, she trying to do the same, but with less success, as her +nature was less pliant than his. + +Then there would come moments when the inward preoccupation would give +way, and that strong need of loving, which was, after all, the basis of +Catherine's character, would break hungrily through, and the wife of +their early married days would reappear, though still only with +limitations. A certain nervous physical dread of any approach to a +particular range of subjects with her husband was always present in her. +Nay, through all these months it gradually increased in morbid strength. +Shock had produced it; perhaps shock alone could loosen the stifling +pressure of it. But still every now and then her mood was brighter, more +caressing, and the area of common mundane interests seemed suddenly to +broaden for them. + +Robert did not always make a wise use of these happier times; he was +incessantly possessed with his old idea that if she only _would_ allow +herself some very ordinary intercourse with his world, her mood would +become less strained, his occupations and his friends would cease to be +such bugbears to her, and, for his comfort and hers, she might +ultimately be able to sympathise with certain sides at any rate of his +work. + +So again and again, when her manner no longer threw him back on himself, +he made efforts and experiments. But he managed them far less cleverly +than he would have managed anybody else's affairs, as generally happens. +For instance, at a period when he was feeling more enthusiasm than usual +for his colleague Wardlaw, and when Catherine was more accessible than +usual, it suddenly occurred to him to make an effort to bring them +together. Brought face to face, each _must_ recognise the nobleness of +the other. He felt boyishly confident of it. So he made it a point, +tenderly but insistently, that Catherine should ask Wardlaw and his wife +to come and see them. And Catherine, driven obscurely by a longing to +yield in something, which recurred, and often terrified herself, yielded +in this. + +The Wardlaws, who in general never went into society, were asked to a +quiet dinner in Bedford Square, and came. Then, of course, it appeared +that Robert, with the idealist's blindness, had forgotten a hundred +small differences of temperament and training which must make it +impossible for Catherine, in a state of tension, to see the hero in +James Wardlaw. It was an unlucky dinner. James Wardlaw, with all his +heroisms and virtues, had long ago dropped most of those delicate +intuitions and divinations, which make the charm of life in society, +along the rough paths of a strenuous philanthropy. He had no tact, and, +like most saints, he drew a certain amount of inspiration from a +contented ignorance of his neighbour's point of view. Also, he was not a +man who made much of women, and he held strong views as to the +subordination of wives. It never occurred to him that Robert might have +a Dissenter in his own household, and as, in spite of their speculative +differences, he had always been accustomed to talk freely with Robert, +he now talked freely to Robert plus his wife, assuming, as every good +Comtist does, that the husband is the wife's pope. + +Moreover, a solitary eccentric life, far from the society of his equals, +had developed in him a good many crude Jacobinisms. His experience of +London clergymen, for instance, had not been particularly favourable, +and he had a store of anecdotes on the subject which Robert had heard +before, but which now, repeated in Catherine's presence, seemed to have +lost every shred of humour they once possessed. Poor Elsmere tried with +all his might to divert the stream, but it showed a tormenting tendency +to recur to the same channel. And meanwhile the little spectacled wife, +dressed in a high home-made cashmere, sat looking at her husband with a +benevolent and smiling admiration. _She_ kept all her eloquence for the +poor. + +After dinner things grew worse. Mrs. Wardlaw had recently presented her +husband with a third infant, and the ardent pair had taken advantage of +the visit to London of an eminent French Comtist to have it baptized +with full Comtist rites. Wardlaw stood astride on the rug, giving the +assembled company a minute account of the ceremony observed, while his +wife threw in gentle explanatory interjections. The manner of both +showed a certain exasperating confidence, if not in the active sympathy, +at least in the impartial curiosity of their audience, and in the +importance to modern religious history of the incident itself. +Catherine's silence grew deeper and deeper; the conversation fell +entirely to Robert. At last Robert, by main force, as it were, got +Wardlaw off into politics, but the new Irish Coercion Bill was hardly +introduced before the irrepressible being turned to Catherine, and said +to her with smiling obtuseness-- + +'I don't believe I've seen you at one of your husband's Sunday addresses +yet, Mrs. Elsmere? And it isn't so far from this part of the world +either.' + +Catherine slowly raised her beautiful large eyes upon him. Robert, +looking at her with a qualm, saw an expression he was learning to dread +flash across the face. + +'I have my Sunday school at that time, Mr. Wardlaw. I am a Churchwoman.' + +The tone had a touch of _hauteur_ Robert had hardly ever heard from his +wife before. It effectually stopped all further conversation. Wardlaw +fell into silence, reflecting that he had been a fool. His wife, with a +timid flush, drew out her knitting, and stuck to it for the twenty +minutes that remained. Catherine immediately did her best to talk, to be +pleasant; but the discomfort of the little party was too great. It broke +up at ten, and the Wardlaws departed. + +Catherine stood on the rug while Elsmere went with his guests to the +door, waiting restlessly for her husband's return. Robert, however, came +back to her, tired, wounded, and out of spirits, feeling that the +attempt had been wholly unsuccessful, and shrinking from any further +talk about it. He at once sat down to some letters for the late post. +Catherine lingered a little, watching him, longing miserably, like any +girl of eighteen, to throw herself on his neck and reproach him for +their unhappiness, his friends--she knew not what! He all the time was +intimately conscious of her presence, of her pale beauty, which now at +twenty-nine, in spite of its severity, had a subtler finish and +attraction than ever, of the restless little movements so unlike +herself, which she made from time to time. But neither spoke except upon +indifferent things. Once more the difficult conditions of their lives +seemed too obvious, too oppressive. Both were ultimately conquered by +the same sore impulse to let speech alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +And after this little scene, through the busy exciting weeks of the +season which followed, Robert, taxed to the utmost on all sides, yielded +to the impulse of silence more and more. + +Society was another difficulty between them, Robert delighted in it so +far as his East End life allowed him to have it. No one was ever more +ready to take other men and women at their own valuation than he. +Nothing was so easy to him as to believe in other people's goodness, or +cleverness, or superhuman achievement. On the other hand, London is kind +to such men as Robert Elsmere. His talk, his writing, were becoming +known and relished; and even the most rigid of the old school found it +difficult to be angry with him. His knowledge of the poor and of social +questions attracted the men of actions; his growing historical +reputation drew the attention of the men of thought. Most people wished +to know him and to talk to him, and Catherine, smiled upon for his +sake, and assumed to be his chief disciple, felt herself more and more +bewildered and antagonistic as the season rushed on. + +For what pleasure could she get out of these dinners and these evenings, +which supplied Robert with so much intellectual stimulus? With her all +the moral nerves were jarring and out of tune. At any time Richard +Leyburn's daughter would have found it hard to tolerate a society where +everything is an open question and all confessions of faith are more or +less bad taste. But now, when there was no refuge to fall back upon in +Robert's arms, no certainty of his sympathy--nay, a certainty that, +however tender and pitiful he might be, he would still think her wrong +and mistaken! She went here and there obediently because he wished; but +her youth seemed to be ebbing, the old Murewell gaiety entirely left +her, and people in general wondered why Elsmere should have married a +wife older than himself, and apparently so unsuited to him in +temperament. + +Especially was she tried at Madame de Netteville's. For Robert's sake +she tried for a time to put aside her first impression and to bear +Madame de Netteville's evenings--little dreaming, poor thing, all the +time that Madame de Netteville thought her presence at the famous +'Fridays' an incubus only to be put up with because the husband was +becoming socially an indispensable. + +But after two or three Fridays Catherine's endurance failed her. On the +last occasion she found herself late in the evening hemmed in behind +Madame de Netteville and a distinguished African explorer, who was the +lion of the evening. Eugenie de Netteville had forgotten her silent +neighbour, and presently, with some biting little phrase or other, she +asked the great man his opinion on a burning topic of the day, the +results of Church Missions in Africa. The great man laughed, shrugged +his shoulders, and ran lightly through a string of stories in which both +missionaries and converts played parts which were either grotesque or +worse. Madame de Netteville thought the stories amusing, and as one +ceased she provoked another, her black eyes full of a dry laughter, her +white hand lazily plying her great ostrich fan. + +Suddenly a figure rose behind them. + +'Oh, Mrs. Elsmere!' said Madame de Netteville, starting, and then coolly +recovering herself, 'I had no idea you were there all alone. I am afraid +our conversation has been disagreeable to you. I am afraid you are a +friend of missions!' + +And her glance, turning from Catherine to her companion, made a little +malicious signal to him which only he detected, as though bidding him +take note of a curiosity. + +'Yes, I care for them, I wish for their success,' said Catherine, one +hand, which trembled slightly, resting on the table beside her, her +great gray eyes fixed on Madame de Netteville. 'No Christian has any +right to do otherwise.' + +Poor brave goaded soul! She had a vague idea of 'bearing testimony' as +her father would have borne it in like circumstances. But she turned +very pale. Even to her the word 'Christian' sounded like a bombshell in +that room. The great traveller looked up astounded. He saw a tall woman +in white with a beautiful head, a delicate face, a something +indescribably noble and unusual in her whole look and attitude. She +looked like a Quaker prophetess--like Dinah Morris in society--like--but +his comparisons failed him. How did such a being come _there_? He was +amazed; but he was a man of taste, and Madame de Netteville caught a +certain aesthetic approbation in his look. + +She rose, her expression hard and bright as usual. + +'May one Christian pronounce for all?' she said with a scornful +affectation of meekness. 'Mrs. Elsmere, please find some chair more +comfortable than that ottoman; and Mr. Ansdale, will you come and be +introduced to Lady Aubrey?' + +After her guests had gone Madame de Netteville came back to the fire +flushed and frowning. It seemed to her that in that strange little +encounter she had suffered, and she never forgot or forgave the smallest +social discomfiture. + +'Can I put up with that again?' she asked herself with a contemptuous +hardening of the lip. 'I suppose I must if _he_ cannot be got without +her. But I have an instinct that it is over--that she will not appear +here again. Daudet might make use of her. I can't. What a specimen! A +boy and girl match, I suppose. What else could have induced that poor +wretch to cut his throat in such fashion? He, of all men!' + +And Eugenie de Netteville stood thinking--not, apparently, of the +puritanical wife; the dangerous softness which overspread the face could +have had no connection with Catherine. + +Madame de Netteville's instinct was just. Catherine Elsmere never +appeared again in her drawing-room. + +But, with a little sad confession of her own invincible distaste, the +wife pressed the husband to go without her. She urged it at a bitter +moment, when it was clear to her that their lives must of necessity, +even in outward matters, be more separate than before. Elsmere resisted +for a time; then, lured one evening towards the end of February by the +prospect conveyed in a note from Madame de Netteville, wherein Catherine +was mentioned in the most scrupulously civil terms, of meeting one of +the most eminent of French critics, he went, and thenceforward went +often. He had, so far, no particular liking for the hostess; he hated +some of her _habitues_; but there was no doubt that in some ways she +made an admirable holder of a _salon_, and that round about her there +was a subtle mixture of elements, a liberty of discussion and comment, +to be found nowhere else. And how bracing and refreshing was that free +play of equal mind to the man weary sometimes of his leader's _role_ and +weary of himself! + +As to the _woman_, his social _naivete_, which was extraordinary, but in +a man of his type most natural, made him accept her exactly as he found +her. If there were two or three people in Paris or London who knew or +suspected incidents of Madame de Netteville's young married days which +made her reception at some of the strictest English houses a matter of +cynical amusement to them, not the remotest inkling of their knowledge +was ever likely to reach Elsmere. He was not a man who attracted +scandals. Nor was it anybody's interest to spread them. Madame de +Netteville's position in London society was obviously excellent. If she +had peculiarities of manner and speech they were easily supposed to be +French. Meanwhile she was undeniably rich and distinguished, and gifted +with a most remarkable power of protecting herself and her neighbours +from boredom. At the same time, though Elsmere was, in truth, more +interested in her friends than in her, he could not possibly be +insensible to the consideration shown for him in her drawing-room. +Madame de Netteville allowed herself plenty of jests with her intimates +as to the young reformer's social simplicity, his dreams, his optimisms. +But those intimates were the first to notice that as soon as he entered +the room those optimisms of his were adroitly respected. She had various +delicate contrivances for giving him the lead; she exercised a kind of +_surveillance_ over the topics introduced; or in conversation with him +she would play that most seductive part of the cynic shamed out of +cynicism by the neighbourhood of the enthusiast. + +Presently she began to claim a practical interest in his Elgood Street +work. Her offers were made with a curious mixture of sympathy and +mockery. Elsmere could not take her seriously. But neither could he +refuse to accept her money, if she chose to spend it on a library for +Elgood Street, or to consult with her about the choice of books. This +whim of hers created a certain friendly bond between them which was not +present before. And on Elsmere's side it was strengthened when, one +evening, in a corner of her inner drawing-room, Madame de Netteville +suddenly, but very quietly, told him the story of her life--her English +youth, her elderly French husband, the death of her only child, and her +flight as a young widow to England during the war of 1870. She told the +story of the child, as it seemed to Elsmere, with a deliberate avoidance +of emotion, nay, even with a certain hardness. But it touched him +profoundly. And everything else that she said, though she professed no +great regret for her husband, or for the break-up of her French life, +and though everything was reticent and measured, deepened the impression +of a real forlornness behind all the outward brilliance and social +importance. He began to feel a deep and kindly pity for her, coupled +with an earnest wish that he could help her to make her life more +adequate and satisfying. And all this he showed in the look of his frank +gray eyes, in the cordial grasp of the hand with which he said good-bye +to her. + +Madame de Netteville's gaze followed him out of the room--the tall +boyish figure, the nobly carried head. The riddle of her flushed cheek +and sparkling eye was hard to read. But there were one or two persons +living who could have read it, and who could have warned you that the +_true_ story of Eugenie de Netteville's life was written, not in her +literary studies or her social triumphs, but in various recurrent +outbreaks of unbridled impulse--the secret, and in one or two cases the +shameful landmarks of her past. And, as persons of experience, they +could also have warned you that the cold intriguer, always mistress of +herself, only exists in fiction, and that a certain poisoned and fevered +interest in the religious leader, the young and pious priest, as such, +is common enough among the corrupter women of all societies. + +Towards the end of May she asked Elsmere to dine '_en petit comite_, a +gentlemen's dinner--except for my cousin, Lady Aubrey Willert'--to meet +an eminent Liberal Catholic, a friend of Montalembert's youth. + +It was a week or two after the failure of the Wardlaw experiment. Do +what each would, the sore silence between the husband and wife was +growing, was swallowing up more of life. + +'Shall I go, Catherine?' he asked, handing her the note. + +'It would interest you,' she said gently, giving it back to him +scrupulously, as though she had nothing to do with it. + +He knelt down before her, and put his arms round her, looking at her +with eyes which had a dumb and yet fiery appeal written in them. His +heart was hungry for that old clinging dependence, that willing weakness +of love, her youth had yielded him so gladly, instead of this silent +strength of antagonism. The memory of her Murewell self flashed +miserably through him as he knelt there, of her delicate penitence +towards him after her first sight of Newcome, of their night walks +during the Mile End epidemic. Did he hold now in his arms only the ghost +and shadow of that Murewell Catherine? + +She must have read the reproach, the yearning of his look, for she gave +a little shiver, as though bracing herself with a kind of agony to +resist. + +'Let me go, Robert!' she said gently, kissing him on the forehead and +drawing back. 'I hear Mary calling, and nurse is out.' + +The days went on and the date of Madame de Netteville's dinner-party had +come round. About seven o'clock that evening Catherine sat with the +child in the drawing-room, expecting Robert. He had gone off early in +the afternoon to the East End with Hugh Flaxman to take part in a +committee of workmen organised for the establishment of a choral union +in R----, the scheme of which had been Flaxman's chief contribution so +far to the Elgood Street undertaking. + +It seemed to her as she sat there working, the windows open on to the +bit of garden, where the trees were already withered and begrimed, that +the air without and her heart within were alike stifling and heavy with +storm. _Something_ must put an end to this oppression, this misery! She +did not know herself. Her whole inner being seemed to her lessened and +degraded by this silent struggle, this fever of the soul, which made +impossible all those serenities and sweetnesses of thought in which her +nature had always lived of old. The fight into which fate had forced her +was destroying her. She was drooping like a plant cut off from all that +nourishes its life. + +And yet she never conceived it possible that she should relinquish that +fight. Nay, at times there sprang up in her now a dangerous and +despairing foresight of even worse things in store. In the middle of her +suffering she already began to feel at moments the ascetic's terrible +sense of compensation. What, after all, is the Christian life but +warfare? '_I came not to send peace, but a sword!_' + +Yes, in these June days Elsmere's happiness was perhaps nearer wreck +than it had ever been. All strong natures grow restless under such a +pressure as was now weighing on Catherine. Shock and outburst become +inevitable. + +So she sat alone this hot afternoon, haunted by presentiments, by vague +terror for herself and him; while the child tottered about her, cooing, +shouting, kissing, and all impulsively, with a ceaseless energy, like +her father. + +The outer door opened, and she heard Robert's step, and apparently Mr. +Flaxman's also. There was a hurried subdued word or two in the hall, and +the two entered the room where she was sitting. + +Robert came, pressing back the hair from his eyes with a gesture which +with him was the invariable accompaniment of mental trouble. Catherine +sprang up. + +'Robert, you look so tired! and how late you are!' Then as she came +nearer to him: 'And your coat--_torn--blood_!' + +'There is nothing wrong with _me_, dear,' he said hastily, taking her +hands--'nothing! But it has been an awful afternoon. Flaxman will tell +you. I must go to this place, I suppose, though I hate the thought of +it! Flaxman, will you tell her all about it?' And, loosing his hold, he +went heavily out of the room and upstairs. + +'It has been an accident,' said Flaxman gently, coming forward, 'to one +of the men of his class. May we sit down, Mrs. Elsmere? Your husband and +I have gone through a good deal these last two hours.' + +He sat down with a long breath, evidently trying to regain his ordinary +even manner. His clothes, too, were covered with dust, and his hand +shook. Catherine stood before him in consternation, while a nurse came +for the child. + +'We had just begun our committee at four o'clock,' he said at last, +'though only about half of the men had arrived, when there was a great +shouting and commotion outside, and a man rushed in calling for Elsmere. +We ran out, found a great crowd, a huge brewer's dray standing in the +street, and a man run over. Your husband pushed his way in. I followed, +and, to my horror, I found him kneeling by--Charles Richards!' + +'Charles Richards?' Catherine repeated vacantly. + +Flaxman looked up at her, as though puzzled; then a flash of +astonishment passed over his face. + +'Elsmere has never told you of Charles Richards, the little gasfitter, +who has been his right hand for the past three months?' + +'No--never,' she said slowly. + +Again he looked astonished; then he went on sadly: 'All this spring he +has been your husband's shadow--I never saw such devotion. We found him +lying in the middle of the road. He had only just left work, a man said +who had been with him, and was running to the meeting. He slipped and +fell, crossing the street, which was muddy from last night's rain. The +dray swung round the corner--the driver was drunk or careless--and they +went right over him. One foot was a sickening sight. Your husband and I +luckily knew how to lift him for the best. We sent off for doctors. His +home was in the next street, as it happened--nearer than any hospital; +so we carried him there. The neighbours were round the door.' + +Then he stopped himself. + +'Shall I tell you the whole story?' he said kindly; 'it has been a +tragedy! I won't give you details if you had rather not.' + +'Oh no!' she said hurriedly; 'no--tell me.' + +And she forgot to feel any wonder that Flaxman, in his chivalry, should +treat her as though she were a girl with nerves. + +'Well, it was the surroundings that were so ghastly. When we got to the +house an old woman rushed at me--"His wife's in there, but ye'll not +find her in her senses; she's been at it from eight o'clock this +morning. We've took the children away." I didn't know what she meant +exactly till we got into the little front room. There, such a spectacle! +A young woman on a chair by the fire sleeping heavily, dead drunk; the +breakfast things on the table, the sun blazing in on the dust and the +dirt, and on the woman's face. I wanted to carry him into the room on +the other side--he was unconscious; but a doctor had come up with us, +and made us put him down on a bed there was in the corner. Then we got +some brandy and poured it down. The doctor examined him, looked at his +foot, threw something over it. "Nothing to be done," he said--"internal +injuries--he can't live half an hour." The next minute the poor fellow +opened his eyes. They had pulled away the bed from the wall. Your +husband was on the farther side, kneeling. When he opened his eyes, +clearly the first thing he saw was his wife. He half sprang up--Elsmere +caught him--and gave a horrible cry--indescribably horrible. "_At it +again, at it again! My God!_" Then he fell back fainting. They got the +wife out of the room between them--a perfect log--you could hear her +heavy breathing from the kitchen opposite. We gave him more brandy and +he came to again. He looked up in your husband's face. "She hasn't broke +out for two months," he said, so piteously, "two months--and now--I'm +done--I'm done--and she'll just go straight to the devil!" And it comes +out, so the neighbours told us, that for two years or more he had been +patiently trying to reclaim this woman, without a word of complaint to +anybody, though his life must have been a dog's life. And now, on his +deathbed, what seemed to be breaking his heart was, not that he was +dying, but that his task was snatched from him!' + +Flaxman paused, and looked away out of window. He told his story with +difficulty. + +'Your husband tried to comfort him--promised that the wife and children +should be his special care, that everything that could be done to save +and protect them should be done. And the poor little fellow looked up at +him, with the tears running down his cheeks, and--and--blessed him. "I +cared about nothing," he said, "when you came. You've been--God--to +me--I've seen Him--in you." Then he asked us to say something. Your +husband said verse after verse of the Psalms, of the Gospels, of St. +Paul. His eyes grew filmy, but he seemed every now and then to struggle +back to life, and as soon as he caught Elsmere's face his look +lightened. Towards the last he said something we none of us caught; but +your husband thought it was a line from Emily Bronte's "Hymn," which he +said to them last Sunday in lecture.' + +He looked up at her interrogatively, but there was no response in her +face. + +'I asked him about it,' the speaker went on, 'as we came home. He said +Grey of St. Anselm's once quoted it to him, and he has had a love for it +ever since.' + +'Did he die while you were there?' asked Catherine presently after a +silence. Her voice was dull and quiet. He thought her a strange woman. + +'No,' said Flaxman, almost sharply; 'but by now it must be over. The +last sign of consciousness was a murmur of his children's names. They +brought them in, but his hands had to be guided to them. A few minutes +after it seemed to me that he was really gone, though he still breathed. +The doctor was certain there would be no more consciousness. We stayed +nearly another hour. Then his brother came, and some other relations, +and we left him. Oh, it is over now!' + +Hugh Flaxman sat looking out into the dingy bit of London garden. +Penetrated with pity as he was, he felt the presence of Elsmere's pale, +silent, unsympathetic wife an oppression. How could she receive such a +story in such a way? + +The door opened and Robert came in hurriedly. + +'Good-night, Catherine--he has told you?' + +He stood by her, his hand on her shoulder, wistfully looking at her, the +face full of signs of what he had gone through. + +'Yes, it was terrible!' she said, with an effort. + +His face fell. He kissed her on the forehead and went away. + +When he was gone, Flaxman suddenly got up and leant against the open +French window, looking keenly down on his companion. A new idea had +stirred in him. + +And presently, after more talk of the incident of the afternoon, and +when he had recovered his usual manner, he slipped gradually into the +subject of his own experiences in North R---- during the last six +months. He assumed all through that she knew as much as there was to be +known of Elsmere's work, and that she was as much interested as the +normal wife is in her husband's doings. His tact, his delicacy, never +failed him for a moment. But he spoke of his own impressions, of matters +within his personal knowledge. And since the Easter sermon he had been +much on Elsmere's track; he had been filled with curiosity about him. + +Catherine sat a little way from him, her blue dress lying in long folds +about her, her head bent, her long fingers crossed on her lap. Sometimes +she gave him a startled look, sometimes she shaded her eyes, while her +other hand played silently with her watch-chain. Flaxman, watching her +closely, however little he might seem to do so, was struck by her +austere and delicate beauty as he had never been before. + +She hardly spoke all through, but he felt that she listened without +resistance, nay, at last that she listened with a kind of hunger. He +went from story to story, from scene to scene, without any excitement, +in his most ordinary manner, making his reserves now and then, +expressing his own opinion when it occurred to him, and not always +favourably. But gradually the whole picture emerged, began to live +before them. At last he hurriedly looked at his watch. + +'What a time I have kept you! It has been a relief to talk to you.' + +'You have not had dinner!' she said, looking up at him with a sudden +nervous bewilderment which touched him and subtly changed his impression +of her. + +'No matter. I will get some at home. Good-night!' + +When he was gone she carried the child up to bed; her supper was brought +to her solitary in the dining-room; and afterwards in the drawing-room, +where a soft twilight was fading into a soft and starlit night, she +mechanically brought out some work for Mary, and sat bending over it by +the window. After about an hour she looked up straight before her, +threw her work down, and slipped on to the floor, her head resting on +the chair. + +The shock, the storm, had come. There for hours lay Catherine Elsmere +weeping her heart away, wrestling with herself, with memory, with God. +It was the greatest moral upheaval she had ever known--greater even than +that which had convulsed her life at Murewell. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +Robert, tired and sick at heart, felt himself in no mood this evening +for a dinner-party in which conversation would be treated more or less +as a fine art. Liberal Catholicism had lost its charm; his sympathetic +interest in Montalembert, Lacordaire, Lamennais, had to be quickened, +pumped up again as it were, by great efforts, which were constantly +relaxed within him as he sped westwards by the recurrent memory of that +miserable room, the group of men, the bleeding hand, the white dying +face. + +In Madame de Netteville's drawing-room he found a small number of people +assembled. M. de Querouelle, a middle-sized, round-headed old gentleman +of a familiar French type; Lady Aubrey, thinner, more lath-like than +ever, clad in some sumptuous mingling of dark red and silver; Lord +Rupert, beaming under the recent introduction of a Land Purchase Bill +for Ireland, by which he saw his way at last to wash his hands of 'a +beastly set of tenants'; Mr. Wharncliffe, a young private secretary with +a waxed moustache, six feet of height, and a general air of +superlativeness which demanded and secured attention; a famous +journalist, whose smiling self-repressive look assured you that he +carried with him the secrets of several empires; and one Sir John +Headlam, a little black-haired Jewish-looking man with a limp--an +ex-Colonial Governor, who had made himself accepted in London as an +amusing fellow, but who was at least as much disliked by one half of +society as he was popular with the other. + +'Purely for talk, you see, not for show!' said Madame de Netteville to +Robert, with a little smiling nod round her circle as they stood waiting +for the commencement of dinner. + +'I shall hardly do my part,' he said with a little sigh. 'I have just +come from a very different scene.' + +She looked at him with inquiring eyes. + +'A terrible accident in the East End,' he said briefly. 'We won't talk +of it. I only mention it to propitiate you beforehand. Those things are +not forgotten at once.' + +She said no more, but, seeing that he was indeed out of heart, +physically and mentally, she showed the most subtle consideration for +him at dinner. M. de Querouelle was made to talk. His hostess wound him +up and set him going, tune after tune. He played them all, and, by dint +of long practice, to perfection, in the French way. A visit of his youth +to the island grave of Chateaubriand; his early memories, as a poetical +aspirant, of the magnificent flatteries by which Victor Hugo made +himself the god of young romantic Paris; his talks with Montalembert in +the days of _L'Avenir_; his memories of Lamennais's sombre figure, of +Maurice de Guerin's feverish ethereal charm; his account of the +opposition _salons_ under the Empire--they had all been elaborated in +the course of years, till every word fitted and each point led to the +next with the 'inevitableness' of true art. Robert, at first silent and +_distrait_, found it impossible after a while not to listen with +interest. He admired the skill, too, of Madame de Netteville's second in +the duet, the finish, the alternate sparkle and melancholy of it; and at +last he too was drawn in, and found himself listened to with great +benevolence by the Frenchman, who had been informed about him, and +regarded him indulgently, as one more curious specimen of English +religious provincialisms. The journalist, Mr. Addlestone, who had won a +European reputation for wisdom by a great scantiness of speech in +society, coupled with the look of Minerva's owl, attached himself to +them; while Lady Aubrey, Sir John Headlam, Lord Rupert, and Mr. +Wharncliffe made a noisier and more dashing party at the other end. + +'Are you still in your old quarters, Lady Aubrey?' asked Sir John +Headlam, turning his old roguish face upon her. 'That house of Nell +Gwynne's, wasn't it, in Meade Street?' + +'Oh dear no! We could only get it up to May this year, and then they +made us turn out for the season, for the first time for ten years. There +is a tiresome young heir who has married a wife and wants to live in it. +I could have left a train of gunpowder and a slow match behind, I was so +cross!' + +'Ah--"Reculer pour mieux _faire_ sauter!"' said Sir John, mincing out +his pun as though he loved it. + +'Not bad, Sir John,' she said, looking at him calmly, 'but you have way +to make up. You were so dull the last time you took me in to dinner, +that positively----' + +'You began to wonder to what I owed my paragraph in the _Societe de +Londres_,' he rejoined, smiling, though a close observer might have seen +an angry flash in his little eyes. 'My dear Lady Aubrey, it was simply +because I had not seen you for six weeks. My education had been +neglected. I get my art and my literature from you. The last time but +one we met, you gave me the cream of three new French novels and all the +dramatic scandal of the period. I have lived on it for weeks. By the +way, have you read the _Princesse de----_?' + +He looked at her audaciously. The book had affronted even Paris. + +'I haven't,' she said, adjusting her bracelets, while she flashed a +rapier-glance at him, 'but if I had, I should say precisely the same. +Lord Rupert, will you kindly keep Sir John in order?' + +Lord Rupert plunged in with the gallant floundering motion +characteristic of him, while Mr. Wharncliffe followed like a modern +gunboat behind a three-decker. That young man was a delusion. The casual +spectator, to borrow a famous Cambridge _mot_, invariably assumed that +all 'the time he could spare from neglecting his duties he must spend in +adorning his person.' Not at all! The _tenue_ of a dandy was never more +cleverly used to mask the schemes of a Disraeli or the hard ambition of +a Talleyrand than in Master Frederick Wharncliffe, who was in reality +going up the ladder hand over hand, and meant very soon to be on the top +rungs. + +It was a curious party, typical of the house, and of a certain stratum +of London. When, every now and then, in the pauses of their own +conversation, Elsmere caught something of the chatter going on at the +other end of the table, or when the party became fused into one for a +while under the genial influence of a good story or the exhilaration of +a personal skirmish, the whole scene--the dainty oval room, the lights, +the servants, the exquisite fruit and flowers, the gleaming silver, the +tapestried walls--would seem to him for an instant like a mirage, a +dream, yet with something glittering and arid about it which a dream +never has. + +The hard self-confidence of these people--did it belong to the same +world as that humbling, that heavenly self-abandonment which had shone +on him that afternoon from Charles Richards's begrimed and blood-stained +face? '_Blessed are the poor in spirit_,' he said to himself once with +an inward groan. 'Why am I here? Why am I not at home with Catherine?' + +But Madame de Netteville was pleasant to him. He had never seen her so +womanly, never felt more grateful for her delicate social skill. As she +talked to him, or to the Frenchman, of literature, or politics, or +famous folk, flashing her beautiful eyes from one to the other, Sir John +Headlam would, every now and then, turn his odd puckered face +observantly towards the farther end of the table. + +'By Jove!' he said afterwards to Wharncliffe as they walked away from +the door together, 'she was inimitable to-night; she has more _roles_ +than Desforets!' Sir John and his hostess were very old friends. + +Upstairs smoking began, Lady Aubrey and Madame de Netteville joining in. +M. de Querouelle, having talked the best of his _repertoire_ at dinner, +was now inclined for amusement, and had discovered that Lady Aubrey +could amuse him, and was, moreover, _une belle personne_. Madame de +Netteville was obliged to give some time to Lord Rupert. The other men +stood chatting politics and the latest news, till Robert, conscious of a +complete failure of social energy, began to look at his watch. Instantly +Madame de Netteville glided up to him. + +'Mr. Elsmere, you have talked no business to me, and I must know how my +affairs in Elgood Street are getting on. Come into my little +writing-room.' And she led him into a tiny panelled room at the far end +of the drawing-room and shut off from it by a heavy curtain, which she +now left half-drawn. + +'The latest?' said Fred Wharncliffe to Lady Aubrey, raising his eyebrows +with the slightest motion of the head towards the writing-room. + +'I suppose so,' she said indifferently; 'she is East-Ending for a +change. We all do it nowadays. It is like Dizzy's young man who "liked +bad wine, he was so bored with good."' + +Meanwhile, Madame de Netteville was leaning against the open window of +the fantastic little room, with Robert beside her. + +'You look as if you had had a strain,' she said to him abruptly, after +they had talked business for a few minutes. 'What has been the matter?' + +He told her Richards's story, very shortly. It would have been +impossible to him to give more than the driest outline of it in that +room. His companion listened gravely. She was an epicure in all things, +especially in moral sensation, and she liked his moments of reserve and +strong self-control. They made his general expansiveness more +distinguished. + +Presently there was a pause, which she broke by saying-- + +'I was at your lecture last Sunday--you didn't see me!' + +'Were you? Ah! I remember a person in black, and veiled, who puzzled me. +I don't think we want you there, Madame de Netteville.' + +His look was pleasant, but his tone had some decision in it. + +'Why not? Is it only the artisans who have souls? A reformer should +refuse no one.' + +'You have your own opportunities,' he said quietly; 'I think the men +prefer to have it to themselves for the present. Some of them are +dreadfully in earnest.' + +'Oh, I don't pretend to be in earnest,' she said with a little wave of +her hand; 'or, at any rate, I know better than to talk of earnestness to +_you_.' + +'Why to me?' he asked, smiling. + +'Oh, because you and your like have your fixed ideas of the upper class +and the lower. One social type fills up your horizon. You are not +interested in any other, and, indeed, you know nothing of any other.' + +She looked at him defiantly. Everything about her to-night was splendid +and regal--her dress of black and white brocade, the diamonds at her +throat, the carriage of her head, nay, the marks of experience and +living on the dark subtle face. + +'Perhaps not,' he replied: 'it is enough for one life to try and make +out where the English working class is tending to.' + +'You are quite wrong, utterly wrong. The man who keeps his eye only on +the lower class will achieve nothing. What can the idealist do without +the men of action--the men who can take his beliefs and make them enter +by violence into existing institutions? And the men of action are to be +found with _us_.' + +'It hardly looks just now as if the upper class was to go on enjoying a +monopoly of them,' he said, smiling. + +'Then appearances are deceptive. The populace supplies mass and +weight--nothing else. What _you_ want is to touch the leaders, the men +and women whose voices carry, and then your populace would follow hard +enough. For instance,'--and she dropped her aggressive tone and spoke +with a smiling kindness,--'come down next Saturday to my little Surrey +cottage; you shall see some of these men and women there, and I will +make you confess when you go away that you have profited your workmen +more by deserting them than by staying with them. Will you come?' + +'My Sundays are too precious to me just now, Madame de Netteville. +Besides, my firm conviction is that the upper class can produce a Brook +Farm, but nothing more. The religious movement of the future will want a +vast effusion of feeling and passion to carry it into action, and +feeling and passion are only to be generated in sufficient volume among +the masses, where the vested interests of all kinds are less tremendous. +You upper-class folk have your part, of course. Woe betide you if you +shirk it--but----' + +'Oh, let us leave it alone,' she said with a little shrug. 'I know you +would give us all the work and refuse us all the profits. We are to +starve for your workman, to give him our hearts and purses and +everything we have, not that we may hoodwink him--which might be worth +doing--but that he may rule us. It is too much!' + +'Very well,' he said drily, his colour rising. 'Very well, let it be too +much.' + +And, dropping his lounging attitude, he stood erect, and she saw that he +meant to be going. Her look swept over him from head to foot--over the +worn face with its look of sensitive refinement and spiritual force, the +active frame, the delicate but most characteristic hand. Never had any +man so attracted her for years; never had she found it so difficult to +gain a hold. Eugenie de Netteville, _poseuse_, schemer, woman of the +world that she was, was losing command of herself. + +'What did you really mean by "worldliness" and the "world" in your +lecture last Sunday?' she asked him suddenly, with a little accent of +scorn. 'I thought your diatribes absurd. What you religious people call +the "world" is really only the average opinion of sensible people which +neither you nor your kind could do without for a day.' + +He smiled, half amused by her provocative tone, and defended himself not +very seriously. But she threw all her strength into the argument, and he +forgot that he had meant to go at once. When she chose she could talk +admirably, and she chose now. She had the most aggressive ways of +attacking, and then, in the same breath, the most subtle and softening +ways of yielding and, as it were, of asking pardon. Directly her +antagonist turned upon her he found himself disarmed he knew not how. +The disputant disappeared, and he felt the woman, restless, melancholy, +sympathetic, hungry for friendship and esteem, yet too proud to make any +direct bid for either. It was impossible not to be interested and +touched. + +Such at least was the woman whom Robert Elsmere felt. Whether in his +hours of intimacy with her, twelve months before, young Alfred Evershed +had received the same impression may be doubted. In all things Eugenie +de Netteville was an artist. + +Suddenly the curtain dividing them from the larger drawing-room was +drawn back, and Sir John Headlam stood in the doorway. He had the +glittering amused eyes of a malicious child as he looked at them. + +'Very sorry, madame,' he began in his high cracked voice, 'but +Wharncliffe and I are off to the New Club to see Desforets. They have +got her there to-night.' + +'Go,' she said, waving her hand to him, 'I don't envy you. She is not +what she was.' + +'No, there is only one person,' he said, bowing with grotesque little +airs of gallantry, 'for whom time stands still.' + +Madame de Netteville looked at him with smiling half-contemptuous +serenity. He bowed again, this time with ironical emphasis, and +disappeared. + +'Perhaps I had better go back and send them off,' she said, rising. 'But +you and I have not had our talk out yet.' + +She led the way into the drawing-room. Lady Aubrey was lying back on the +velvet sofa, a little green paroquet that was accustomed to wander +tamely about the room perching on her hand. She was holding the field +against Lord Rupert and Mr. Addlestone in a three-cornered duel of wits, +while M. de Querouelle sat by, his plump hands on his knees, applauding. + +They all rose as their hostess came in. + +'My dear' said Lady Aubrey, 'it is disgracefully early, but my country +before pleasure. It is the Foreign Office to-night, and since James took +office I can't with decency absent myself. I had rather be a +scullerymaid than a minister's wife. Lord Rupert, I will take you on if +you want a lift.' + +She touched Madame de Netteville's cheek with her lips, nodding to the +other men present, and went out, her fair stag-like head well in the +air, 'chaffing' Lord Rupert, who obediently followed her, performing +marvellous feats of agility in his desire to keep out of the way of the +superb train sweeping behind her. It always seemed as if Lady Aubrey +could have had no childhood, as if she must always have had just that +voice and those eyes. Tears she could never have shed, not even as a +baby over a broken toy. Besides, at no period of her life could she +have looked upon a lost possession as anything else than the opportunity +for a new one. + +The other men took their departure for one reason or another. It was not +late, but London was in full swing, and M. de Querouelle talked with +gusto of four 'At homes' still to be grappled with. + +As she dismissed Mr. Wharncliffe, Robert too held out his hand. + +'No,' she said, with a quick impetuousness, 'no: I want my talk out. It +is barely half-past ten, and neither of us wants to be racing about +London to-night.' + +Elsmere had always a certain lack of social decision, and he lingered +rather reluctantly--for another ten minutes, as he supposed. + +She threw herself into a low chair. The windows were open to the back of +the house, and the roar of Piccadilly and Sloane Street came borne in +upon the warm night air. Her superb dark head stood out against a stand +of yellow lilies close behind her, and the little paroquet, bright with +all the colours of the tropics, perched now on her knee, now on the back +of her chair, touched every now and then by quick unsteady fingers. + +Then an incident followed which Elsmere remembered to his dying day with +shame and humiliation. + +In ten minutes from the time of their being left alone, a woman who was +five years his senior had made him what was practically a confession of +love--had given him to understand that she knew what were the relations +between himself and his wife--and had implored him with the quick breath +of an indescribable excitement to see what a woman's sympathy and a +woman's unique devotion could do for the causes he had at heart. + +The truth broke upon Elsmere very slowly, awakening in him, when at last +it was unmistakable, a swift agony of repulsion, which his most friendly +biographer can only regard with a kind of grim satisfaction. For after +all there is an amount of innocence and absent-mindedness in matters of +daily human life, which is not only _niaiserie_, but comes very near to +moral wrong. In this crowded world a man has no business to walk about +with his eyes always on the stars. His stumbles may have too many +consequences. A harsh but a salutary truth! If Elsmere needed it, it was +bitterly taught him during a terrible half-hour. When the half-coherent +enigmatical sentences, to which he listened at first with a perplexed +surprise, began gradually to define themselves; when he found a woman +roused and tragically beautiful between him and escape; when no +determination on his part not to understand; when nothing he could say +availed to protect her from herself; when they were at last face to face +with a confession and an appeal which were a disgrace to both--then at +last Elsmere paid 'in one minute glad life's arrears,'--the natural +penalty of an optimism, a boundless faith in human nature, with which +life, as we know it, is inconsistent. + +How he met the softness, the grace, the seduction of a woman who was an +expert in all the arts of fascination he never knew. In memory +afterwards it was all a ghastly mirage to him. The low voice, the +splendid dress, the scented room came back to him, and a confused memory +of his own futile struggle to ward off what she was bent on +saying--little else. He had been maladroit, he thought, had lost his +presence of mind. Any man of the world of his acquaintance, he believed, +trampling on himself, would have done better. + +But when the softness and the grace were all lost in smart and +humiliation, when the Madame de Netteville of ordinary life disappeared, +and something took her place which was like a coarse and malignant +underself suddenly brought into the light of day--from that point +onwards, in after days, he remembered it all. + +'... I know,' cried Eugenie de Netteville at last, standing at bay +before him, her hands locked before her, her white lips quivering, when +her cup of shame was full, and her one impulse left was to strike the +man who had humiliated her--'I know that you and your puritanical wife +are miserable--_miserable_. What is the use of denying facts that all +the world can see, that you have taken pains,' and she laid a fierce +deliberate emphasis on each word, 'all the world shall see? There--let +your wife's ignorance and bigotry, and your own obvious relation to her, +be my excuse, if I wanted any; but,' and she shrugged her white +shoulders passionately, 'I want _none_! I am not responsible to your +petty codes. Nature and feeling are enough for me. I saw you wanting +sympathy and affection----' + +'My wife!' cried Robert, hearing nothing but that one word. And then, +his glance sweeping over the woman before him, he made a stern step +forward. + +'Let me go, Madame de Netteville, let me go, or I shall forget that you +are a woman and I a man, and that in some way I cannot understand my own +blindness and folly----' + +'Must have led to this most undesirable scene,' she said with mocking +suddenness, throwing herself, however, effectually in his way. Then a +change came over her, and erect, ghastly white, with frowning brow and +shaking limbs, a baffled and smarting woman from whom every restraint +had fallen away, let loose upon him a torrent of gall and bitterness +which he could not have cut short without actual violence. + +He stood proudly enduring it, waiting for the moment when what seemed to +him an outbreak of mania should have spent itself. But suddenly he +caught Catherine's name coupled with some contemptuous epithet or other, +and his self-control failed him. With flashing eyes he went close up to +her and took her wrists in a grip of iron. + +'You shall not,' he said, beside himself, 'you shall not! What have I +done--what has she done--that you should allow yourself such words? My +poor wife!' + +A passionate flood of self-reproachful love was on his lips. He choked +it back. It was desecration that _her_ name should be mentioned in that +room. But he dropped the hand he held. The fierceness died out of his +eyes. His companion stood beside him panting, breathless, afraid. + +'Thank God,' he said slowly, 'thank God for yourself and me that I +_love_ my wife! I am not worthy of her--doubly unworthy, since it has +been possible for any human being to suspect for one instant that I was +ungrateful for the blessing of her love, that I could ever forget and +dishonour her! But worthy or not---- No!--no matter! Madame de +Netteville, let me go, and forget that such a person exists.' + +She looked at him steadily for a moment, at the stern manliness of the +face which seemed in this half-hour to have grown older, at the attitude +with its mingled dignity and appeal. In that second she realised what +she had done and what she had forfeited; she measured the gulf between +herself and the man before her. But she did not flinch. Still holding +him, as it were, with menacing defiant eyes, she moved aside, she waved +her hand with a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. He bowed, passed her, +and the door shut. + + * * * * * + +For nearly an hour afterwards Elsmere wandered blindly and aimlessly +through the darkness and silence of the park. + +The sensitive optimist nature was all unhinged, felt itself wrestling in +the grip of dark implacable things, upheld by a single thread above that +moral abyss which yawns beneath us all, into which the individual life +sinks so easily to ruin and nothingness. At such moments a man realises +within himself, within the circle of consciousness, the germs of all +things hideous and vile. '_Save for the grace of God_,' he says to +himself, shuddering, 'save only for the grace of God----' + +Contempt for himself, loathing for life and its possibilities, as he had +just beheld them; moral tumult, pity, remorse, a stinging +self-reproach--all these things wrestled within him. What, preach to +others, and stumble himself into such mire as this? Talk loudly of love +and faith, and make it possible all the time that a fellow human +creature should think you capable at a pinch of the worst treason +against both? + +Elsmere dived to the very depths of his own soul that night. Was it all +the natural consequence of a loosened bond, of a wretched relaxation of +effort--a wretched acquiescence in something second best? Had love been +cooling? Had it simply ceased to take the trouble love must take to +maintain itself? And had this horror been the subtle inevitable Nemesis? + +All at once, under the trees of the park, Elsmere stopped for a moment +in the darkness, and bared his head, with the passionate reverential +action of a devotee before his saint. The lurid image which had been +pursuing him gave way, and in its place came the image of a new-made +mother, her child close within her sheltering arm. Ah! it was all plain +to him now. The moral tempest had done its work. + +One task of all tasks had been set him from the beginning--to keep his +wife's love! If she had slipped away from him, to the injury and moral +lessening of both, on his cowardice, on his clumsiness, be the blame! +Above all, on his fatal power of absorbing himself in a hundred outside +interests, controversy, literature, society. Even his work seemed to +have lost half its sacredness. If there be a canker at the root, no +matter how large the show of leaf and blossom overhead, there is but the +more to wither! Of what worth is any success, but that which is grounded +deep on the rock of personal love and duty? + +Oh! let him go back to her!--wrestle with her, open his heart again, try +new ways, make new concessions. How faint the sense of _her_ trial has +been growing within him of late! hers which had once been more terrible +to him than his own! He feels the special temptations of his own nature; +he throws himself, humbled, convicted, at her feet. The woman, the scene +he has left, is effaced, blotted out by the natural intense reaction of +remorseful love. + + * * * * * + +So he sped homewards at last through the noise of Oxford Street, seeing, +hearing nothing. He opened his own door, and let himself into the dim, +silent house. How the moment recalled to him that other supreme moment +of his life at Murewell! No light in the drawing-room. He went upstairs +and softly turned the handle of her room. + +Inside the room seemed to him nearly dark. But the window was wide open. +The free loosely-growing branches of the plane trees made a dark, +delicate network against the luminous blue of the night. A cool air came +to him laden with an almost rural scent of earth and leaves. By the +window sat a white motionless figure. As he closed the door it rose and +walked towards him without a word. Instinctively Robert felt that +something unknown to him had been passing here. He paused breathless, +expectant. + +She came to him. She linked her cold trembling fingers round his neck. + +'Robert, I have been waiting so long--it was so late! I thought'--and +she choked down a sob--'perhaps something has happened to him, we are +separated for ever, and I shall never be able to tell him. Robert, Mr. +Flaxman talked to me; he opened my eyes; I have been so cruel to you, so +hard! I have broken my vow. I don't deserve it; but--_Robert!_----' + +She had spoken with extraordinary self-command till the last word, which +fell into a smothered cry for pardon. Catherine Elsmere had very little +of the soft clingingness which makes the charm of a certain type of +woman. Each phrase she had spoken had seemed to take with it a piece of +her life. She trembled and tottered in her husband's arms. + +He bent over her with half-articulate words of amazement, of passion. He +led her to her chair, and, kneeling before her, he tried, so far as the +emotion of both would let him, to make her realise what was in his _own_ +heart, the penitence and longing which had winged his return to her. +Without a mention of Madame de Netteville's name, indeed! _That_ horror +she should never know. But it was to it, as he held his wife, he owed +his poignant sense of something half-jeopardised and wholly recovered; +it was that consciousness in the background of his mind, ignorant of it +as Catherine was then and always, which gave the peculiar epoch-making +force to this sacred and critical hour of their lives. But she would +hear nothing of his self-blame--nothing. She put her hand across his +lips. + +'I have seen things as they are, Robert,' she said very simply; 'while I +have been sitting here, and downstairs, after Mr. Flaxman left me. You +were right--I _would_ not understand. And, in a sense, I shall never +understand. I cannot change,' and her voice broke into piteousness. 'My +Lord is my Lord always; but He is yours too. Oh, I know it, say what you +will! _That_ is what has been hidden from me; that is what my trouble +has taught me; the powerlessness, the worthlessness, of words. _It is +the spirit that quickeneth._ I should never have felt it so, but for +this fiery furnace of pain. But I have been wandering in strange places, +through strange thoughts. God has not one language, but many. I have +dared to think He had but one, the one I knew. I have dared'--and she +faltered--'to condemn your faith as no faith. Oh! I lay there so long in +the dark downstairs, seeing you by that bed; I heard your voice, I crept +to your side. Jesus was there, too. Ah, He was--He was! Leave me that +comfort! What are you saying? Wrong--you? Unkind? Your wife knows +nothing of it. Oh, did you think when you came in just now before dinner +that I didn't care, that I had a heart of stone? Did you think I had +broken my solemn promise, my vow to you that day at Murewell? So I have, +a hundred times over. I made it in ignorance; I had not counted the +cost--how could I? It was all so new, so strange. I dare not make it +again, the will is so weak, circumstances so strong. But oh! take me +back into your life! Hold me there! Remind me always of this night; +convict me out of my own mouth! But I _will_ learn my lesson; I will +learn to hear the two voices, the voice that speaks to you and the voice +that speaks to me--I must. It is all plain to me now. It has been +appointed me.' + +Then she broke down into a kind of weariness, and fell back in her +chair, her delicate fingers straying with soft childish touch over his +hair. + +'But I am past thinking. Let us bury it all, and begin again. Words are +nothing.' + +Strange ending to a day of torture! As she towered above him in the +dimness, white and pure and drooping, her force of nature all dissolved, +lost in this new heavenly weakness of love, he thought of the man who +passed through the place of sin, and the place of expiation, and saw at +last the rosy light creeping along the East, caught the white moving +figures, and that sweet distant melody rising through the luminous air, +which announced to him the approach of Beatrice and the nearness of +those 'shining tablelands whereof our God Himself is moon and sun.' For +eternal life, the ideal state, is not something future and distant. +Dante knew it when he talked of '_quella que imparadisa la mia mente_.' +Paradise is here, visible and tangible by mortal eyes and hands, +whenever self is lost in loving, whenever the narrow limits of +personality are beaten down by the inrush of the Divine Spirit. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +The saddest moment in the lives of these two persons whose history we +have followed for so long was over and done with. Henceforward to the +end Elsmere and his wife were lovers as of old. + +But that day and night left even deeper marks on Robert than on +Catherine. Afterwards she gradually came to feel, running all through +his views of life, a note sterner, deeper, maturer than any present +there before. The reasons for it were unknown to her, though sometimes +her own tender, ignorant remorse supplied them. But they were hidden +deep in Elsmere's memory. + +A few days afterwards he was casually told that Madame de Netteville had +left England for some time. As a matter of fact he never set eyes on her +again. After a while the extravagance of his self-blame abated. He saw +things as they were--without morbidness. But a certain boyish +carelessness of mood he never afterwards quite recovered. Men and women +of all classes, and not only among the poor, became more real and more +tragic--moral truths more awful--to him. It was the penalty of a +highly-strung nature set with exclusive intensity towards certain +spiritual ends. + +On the first opportunity after that conversation with Hugh Flaxman which +had so deeply affected her, Catherine accompanied Elsmere to his Sunday +lecture. He tried a little, tenderly, to dissuade her. But she went, +shrinking and yet determined. + +She had not heard him speak in public since that last sermon of his in +Murewell Church, every detail of which by long brooding had been burnt +into her mind. The bare Elgood Street room, the dingy outlook on the +high walls of a warehouse opposite, the lines of blanched quick-eyed +artisans, the dissent from what she loved, and he had once loved, +implied in everything, the lecture itself, on the narratives of the +Passion; it was all exquisitely painful to her, and, yet, yet she was +glad to be there. + +Afterwards Wardlaw, with the brusque remark to Elsmere that 'any fool +could see he was getting done up,' insisted on taking the children's +class. Catherine, too, had been impressed, as she saw Robert raised a +little above her in the glare of many windows, with the sudden +perception that the worn, exhausted look of the preceding summer had +returned upon him. She held out her hand to Wardlaw with a quick, warm +word of thanks. He glanced at her curiously. What had brought her there +after all? + +Then Robert, protesting that he was being ridiculously coddled, and that +Wardlaw was much more in want of a holiday than he, was carried off to +the Embankment, and the two spent a happy hour wandering westward, +Somerset House, the bridges, the Westminster towers rising before them +into the haze of the June afternoon. A little fresh breeze came off the +river; that, or his wife's hand on his arm, seemed to put new life into +Elsmere. And she walked beside him, talking frankly, heart to heart, +with flashes of her old sweet gaiety, as she had not talked for months. + +Deep in her mystical sense all the time lay the belief in a final +restoration, in an all-atoning moment, perhaps at the very end of life, +in which the blind would see, the doubter be convinced. And, meanwhile, +the blessedness of this peace, this surrender! Surely the air this +afternoon was pure and life-giving for them, the bells rang for them, +the trees were green for them! + + * * * * * + +He had need in the week that followed of all that she had given back to +him. For Mr. Grey's illness had taken a dangerous and alarming turn. It +seemed to be the issue of long ill-health, and the doctors feared that +there were no resources of constitution left to carry him through it. +Every day some old St. Anselm's friend on the spot wrote to Elsmere, and +with each post the news grew more despairing. Since Elsmere had left +Oxford he could count on the fingers of one hand the occasions on which +he and Grey had met face to face. But for him, as for many another man +of our time, Henry Grey's influence was not primarily an influence of +personal contact. His mere life, that he was there, on English soil, +within a measurable distance, had been to Elsmere in his darkest moments +one of his thoughts of refuge. At a time when a religion which can no +longer be believed clashes with a scepticism full of danger to conduct, +every such witness as Grey to the power of a new and coming truth holds +a special place in the hearts of men who can neither accept fairy tales, +nor reconcile themselves to a world without faith. The saintly life +grows to be a beacon, a witness. Men cling to it as they have always +clung to each other, to the visible and the tangible; as the elders of +Miletus, though the Way lay before them, clung to the man who had set +their feet therein, 'sorrowing most of all that they should see his face +no more.' + +The accounts grew worse--all friends shut out, no possibility of last +words--the whole of Oxford moved and sorrowing. Then at last, on a +Friday, came the dreaded expected letter: 'He is gone! He died early +this morning, without pain, conscious almost to the end. He mentioned +several friends by name, you among them, during the night. The funeral +is to be on Tuesday. You will be here, of course.' + +Sad and memorable day! By an untoward chance it fell in Commemoration +week, and Robert found the familiar streets teeming with life and noise, +under a showery uncertain sky, which every now and then would send the +bevies of lightly-gowned maidens, with their mothers and attendant +squires, skurrying for shelter, and leave the roofs and pavements +glistening. He walked up to St. Anselm's--found, as he expected, that +the first part of the service was to be in the chapel, the rest in the +cemetery, and then mounted the well-known staircase to Langham's rooms. +Langham was apparently in his bedroom. Lunch was on the table--the +familiar commons, the familiar toast-and-water. There, in a recess, were +the same splendid wall maps of Greece he had so often consulted after +lecture. There was the little case of coins, with the gold Alexanders he +had handled with so much covetous reverence at eighteen. Outside, the +irregular quadrangle with its dripping trees stretched before him; the +steps of the new Hall, now the shower was over, were crowded with gowned +figures. It might have been yesterday that he had stood in that room, +blushing with awkward pleasure under Mr. Grey's first salutation. + +The bedroom door opened and Langham came in. + +'Elsmere! But of course I expected you.' + +His voice seemed to Robert curiously changed. There was a flatness in +it, an absence of positive cordiality which was new to him in any +greeting of Langham's to himself, and had a chilling effect upon him. +The face, too, was changed. Tint and expression were both dulled; its +marble-like sharpness and finish had coarsened a little, and the figure, +which had never possessed the erectness of youth, had now the pinched +look and the confirmed stoop of the valetudinarian. + +'I did not write to you, Elsmere,' he said immediately, as though in +anticipation of what the other would be sure to say; 'I knew nothing but +what the bulletins said, and I was told that Cathcart wrote to you. It +is many years now since I have seen much of Grey. Sit down and have some +lunch. We have time, but not too much time.' + +Robert took a few mouthfuls. Langham was difficult, talked +disconnectedly of trifles, and Robert was soon painfully conscious that +the old sympathetic bond between them no longer existed. Presently, +Langham, as though with an effort to remember, asked after Catherine, +then inquired what he was doing in the way of writing, and neither of +them mentioned the name of Leyburn. They left the table and sat +spasmodically talking, in reality expectant. And at last the sound +present already in both minds made itself heard--the first long solitary +stroke of the chapel bell. + +Robert covered his eyes. + +'Do you remember in this room, Langham, you introduced us first?' + +'I remember,' replied the other abruptly. Then, with a half-cynical, +half-melancholy scrutiny of his companion, he said, after a pause, 'What +a faculty of hero-worship you have always had, Elsmere!' + +'Do you know anything of the end?' Robert asked him presently, as that +tolling bell seemed to bring the strong feeling beneath more +irresistibly to the surface. + +'No, I never asked!' cried Langham, with sudden harsh animation. 'What +purpose could be served? Death should be avoided by the living. We have +no business with it. Do what we will, we cannot rehearse our own parts. +And the sight of other men's performances helps us no more than the +sight of a great actor gives the dramatic gift. All they do for us is to +imperil the little nerve, break through the little calm, we have left.' + +Elsmere's hand dropped, and he turned round to him with a flashing +smile. + +'Ah--I know it now--you loved him still.' + +Langham, who was standing, looked down on him sombrely, yet more +indulgently. + +'How much you always made of feeling,' he said after a little pause, 'in +a world where, according to me, our chief object should be not to feel!' + +Then he began to hunt for his cap and gown. In another minute the two +made part of the crowd in the front quadrangle, where the rain was +sprinkling, and the insistent grief-laden voice of the bell rolled, from +pause to pause, above the gowned figures, spreading thence in wide waves +of mourning sound over Oxford. + +The chapel service passed over Robert like a solemn pathetic dream. The +lines of undergraduate faces, the provost's white head, the voice of the +chaplain reading, the full male unison of the voices replying--how they +carried him back to the day when as a lad from school he had sat on one +of the chancel benches beside his mother, listening for the first time +to the subtle simplicity, if one may be allowed the paradox, of the +provost's preaching! Just opposite to where he sat now with Langham, +Grey had sat that first afternoon; the freshman's curious eyes had been +drawn again and again to the dark massive head, the face with its look +of reposeful force, of righteous strength. During the lesson from +Corinthians, Elsmere's thoughts were irrelevantly busy with all sorts of +mundane memories of the dead. What was especially present to him was a +series of Liberal election meetings in which Grey had taken a warm part, +and in which he himself had helped just before he took Orders. A hundred +odd, incongruous details came back to Robert now with poignant force. +Grey had been to him at one time primarily the professor, the +philosopher, the representative of all that was best in the life of the +University; now, fresh from his own grapple with London and its life, +what moved him most was the memory of the citizen, the friend and +brother of common man, the thinker who had never shirked action in the +name of thought, for whom conduct had been from beginning to end the +first reality. + +The procession through the streets afterwards, which conveyed the body +of this great son of modern Oxford to its last resting-place in the +citizens' cemetery on the western side of the town, will not soon be +forgotten, even in a place which forgets notoriously soon. All the +University was there, all the town was there. Side by side with men +honourably dear to England, who had carried with them into one or other +of the great English careers the memory of the teacher, were men who had +known from day to day the cheery modest helper in a hundred local +causes; side by side with the youth of Alma Mater went the poor of +Oxford; tradesmen and artisans followed or accompanied the group of +gowned and venerable figures, representing the Heads of Houses and the +Professors, or mingled with the slowly pacing crowd of Masters; while +along the route groups of visitors and merrymakers, young men in +flannels or girls in light dresses, stood with suddenly grave faces here +and there, caught by the general wave of mourning, and wondering what +such a spectacle might mean. + +Robert, losing sight of Langham as they left the chapel, found his arm +grasped by young Cathcart, his correspondent. The man was a junior +Fellow who had attached himself to Grey during the two preceding years +with especial devotion. Robert had only a slight knowledge of him, but +there was something in his voice and grip which made him feel at once +infinitely more at home with him at this moment than he had felt with +the old friend of his undergraduate years. + +They walked down Beaumont Street together. The rain came on again, and +the long black crowd stretched before them was lashed by the driving +gusts. As they went along, Cathcart told him all he wanted to know. + +'The night before the end he was perfectly calm and conscious. I told +you he mentioned your name among the friends to whom he sent his +good-bye. He thought for everybody. For all those of his house he left +the most minute and tender directions. He forgot nothing. And all with +such extraordinary simplicity and quietness, like one arranging for a +journey! In the evening an old Quaker aunt of his, a North-country woman +whom he had been much with as a boy, and to whom he was much attached, +was sitting with him. I was there too. She was a beautiful old figure in +her white cap and kerchief, and it seemed to please him to lie and look +at her. "It'll not be for long, Henry," she said to him once. "I'm +seventy-seven this spring. I shall come to you soon." He made no reply, +and his silence seemed to disturb her. I don't fancy she had known much +of his mind of late years. "You'll not be doubting the Lord's goodness, +Henry?" she said to him, with the tears in her eyes. "No," he said, "no, +never. Only it seems to be His Will, we should be certain of +nothing--_but Himself_! I ask no more." I shall never forget the accent +of those words: they were the breath of his inmost life. If ever man was +_Gottbetrunken_ it was he--and yet not a word beyond what he felt to be +true, beyond what the intellect could grasp!' + +Twenty minutes later Robert stood by the open grave. The rain beat down +on the black concourse of mourners. But there were blue spaces in the +drifting sky, and a wavering rainy light played at intervals over the +Wytham and Hinksey Hills, and over the butter-cupped river meadows, +where the lush hay-grass bent in long lines under the showers. To his +left, the provost, his glistening white head bare to the rain, was +reading the rest of the service. + +As the coffin was lowered Elsmere bent over the grave. 'My friend, my +master,' cried the yearning filial heart, 'oh, give me something of +yourself to take back into life, something to brace me through this +darkness of our ignorance, something to keep hope alive as you kept it +to the end!' + +And on the inward ear there rose, with the solemnity of a last message, +words which years before he had found marked in a little book of +Meditations borrowed from Grey's table--words long treasured and often +repeated-- + +'Amid a world of forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own +shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who +has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind _has lived in +order to love and understand_, will find that the God who is near to him +as his own conscience has a face of light and love!' + +Pressing the phrases into his memory, he listened to the triumphant +outbursts of the Christian service. + +'Man's hope,' he thought, 'has grown humbler than this. It keeps now a +more modest mien in the presence of the Eternal Mystery; but is it in +truth less real, less sustaining? Let Grey's trust answer for me.' + +He walked away absorbed, till at last in the little squalid street +outside the cemetery it occurred to him to look round for Langham. +Instead, he found Cathcart, who had just come up with him. + +'Is Langham behind?' he asked. 'I want a word with him before I go.' + +'Is he here?' asked the other with a change of expression. + +'But of course! He was in the chapel. How could you----' + +'I thought he would probably go away,' said Cathcart with some +bitterness. 'Grey made many efforts to get him to come and see him +before he became so desperately ill. Langham came once. Grey never asked +for him again.' + +'It is his old horror of expression, I suppose,' said Robert troubled; +'his dread of being forced to take a line, to face anything certain and +irrevocable. I understand. He could not say good-bye to a friend to save +his life. There is no shirking that! One must either do it or leave it!' + +Cathcart shrugged his shoulders, and drew a masterly little picture of +Langham's life in college. He had succeeded by the most adroit devices +in completely isolating himself both from the older and the younger men. + +'He attends college-meeting sometimes, and contributes a sarcasm or two +on the cramming system of the college. He takes a constitutional to +Summertown every day on the least frequented side of the road, that he +may avoid being spoken to. And as to his ways of living, he and I happen +to have the same scout--old Dobson, you remember? And if I would let +him, he would tell me tales by the hour. He is the only man in the +University who knows anything about it. I gather from what he says that +Langham is becoming a complete valetudinarian. Everything must go +exactly by rule--his food, his work, the management of his clothes--and +any little _contretemps_ makes him ill. But the comedy is to watch him +when there is anything going on in the place that he thinks may lead to +a canvass and to any attempt to influence him for a vote. On these +occasions he goes off with automatic regularity to an hotel at West +Malvern, and only reappears when the _Times_ tells him the thing is done +with.' + +Both laughed. Then Robert sighed. Weaknesses of Langham's sort may be +amusing enough to the contemptuous and unconcerned outsider. But the +general result of them, whether for the man himself or those whom he +affects, is tragic, not comic; and Elsmere had good reason for knowing +it. + +Later, after a long talk with the provost, and meetings with various +other old friends, he walked down to the station, under a sky clear from +rain, and through a town gay with festal preparations. Not a sign now, +in these crowded, bustling streets, of that melancholy pageant of the +afternoon. The heroic memory had flashed for a moment like something +vivid and gleaming in the sight of all, understanding and ignorant. Now +it lay committed to a few faithful hearts, there to become one seed +among many of a new religious life in England. + +On the platform Robert found himself nervously accosted by a tall +shabbily-dressed man. + +'Elsmere, have you forgotten me?' + +He turned and recognised a man whom he had last seen as a St. Anselm's +undergraduate--one MacNiell, a handsome rowdy young Irishman, supposed +to be clever, and decidedly popular in the college. As he stood looking +at him, puzzled by the difference between the old impression and the +new, suddenly the man's story flashed across him; he remembered some +disgraceful escapade--an expulsion. + +'You came for the funeral, of course?' said the other, his face flushing +consciously. + +'Yes--and you too?' + +The man turned away, and something in his silence led Robert to stroll +on beside him to the open end of the platform. + +'I have lost my only friend,' MacNiell said at last hoarsely. 'He took +me up when my own father would have nothing to say to me. He found me +work; he wrote to me; for years he stood between me and perdition. I am +just going out to a post in New Zealand he got for me, and next week +before I sail--I--I--am to be married--and he was to be there. He was so +pleased--he had seen her.' + +It was one story out of a hundred like it, as Robert knew very well. +They talked for a few minutes, then the train loomed in the distance. + +'He saved you,' said Robert, holding out his hand, 'and at a dark moment +in my own life I owed him everything. There is nothing we can do for him +in return but--to remember him! Write to me, if you can or will, from +New Zealand, for his sake.' + +A few seconds later the train sped past the bare little cemetery, which +lay just beyond the line. Robert bent forward. In the pale yellow glow +of the evening he could distinguish the grave, the mound of gravel, the +planks, and some figures moving beside it. He strained his eyes till he +could see no more, his heart full of veneration, of memory, of prayer. +In himself life seemed so restless and combative. Surely he, more than +others, had need of the lofty lessons of death! + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +In the weeks which followed--weeks often of mental and physical +depression, caused by his sense of personal loss and by the influence of +an overworked state he could not be got to admit--Elsmere owed much to +Hugh Flaxman's cheery sympathetic temper, and became more attached to +him than ever, and more ready than ever, should the fates deem it so, to +welcome him as a brother-in-law. However, the fates for the moment +seemed to have borrowed a leaf from Langham's book, and did not +apparently know their own minds. It says volumes for Hugh Flaxman's +general capacities as a human being that at this period he should have +had any attention to give to a friend, his position as a lover was so +dubious and difficult. + +After the evening at the Workmen's Club, and as a result of further +meditation, he had greatly developed the tactics first adopted on that +occasion. He had beaten a masterly retreat, and Rose Leyburn was +troubled with him no more. + +The result was that a certain brilliant young person was soon sharply +conscious of a sudden drop in the pleasures of living. Mr. Flaxman had +been the Leyburns' most constant and entertaining visitor. During the +whole of May he paid one formal call in Lerwick Gardens, and was then +entertained _tete-a-tete_ by Mrs. Leyburn, to Rose's intense subsequent +annoyance, who knew perfectly well that her mother was incapable of +chattering about anything but her daughters. + +He still sent flowers, but they came from his head gardener, addressed +to Mrs. Leyburn. Agnes put them in water; and Rose never gave them a +look. Rose went to Lady Helen's because Lady Helen made her, and was +much too engaging a creature to be rebuffed; but, however merry and +protracted the teas in those scented rooms might be, Mr. Flaxman's step +on the stairs, and Mr. Flaxman's hand on the curtain over the door, till +now the feature in the entertainment most to be counted on, were, +generally speaking, conspicuously absent. + +He and the Leyburns met, of course; for their list of common friends was +now considerable; but Agnes, reporting matters to Catherine, could only +say that each of these occasions left Rose more irritable, and more +inclined to say biting things as to the foolish ways in which society +takes its pleasures. + +Rose certainly was irritable, and at times, Agnes thought, depressed. +But as usual she was unapproachable about her own affairs, and the state +of her mind could only be somewhat dolefully gathered from the fact that +she was much less unwilling to go back to Burwood this summer than had +ever been known before. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman left certain other people in no doubt as to his +intentions. + +'My dear aunt,' he said calmly to Lady Charlotte, 'I mean to marry Miss +Leyburn if I can at any time persuade her to have me. So much you may +take as fixed, and it will be quite waste of breath on your part to +quote dukes to me. But the other factor in the problem is by no means +fixed. Miss Leyburn won't have me at present, and as for the future I +have most salutary qualms.' + +'Hugh!' interrupted Lady Charlotte angrily, 'as if you hadn't had the +mothers of London at your feet for years!' + +Lady Charlotte was in a most variable frame of mind; one day hoping +devoutly that the Langham affair might prove lasting enough in its +effects to tire Hugh out; the next, outraged that a silly girl should +waste a thought on such a creature, while Hugh was in her way; at one +time angry that an insignificant chit of a schoolmaster's daughter +should apparently care so little to be the Duke of Sedbergh's niece, and +should even dare to allow herself the luxury of snubbing a Flaxman; at +another, utterly sceptical as to any lasting obduracy on the chit's +part. The girl was clearly anxious not to fall too easily, but as to +final refusal--pshaw! And it made her mad that Hugh would hold himself +so cheap. + +Meanwhile, Mr. Flaxman felt himself in no way called upon to answer that +remark of his aunt's we have recorded. + +'I have qualms,' he repeated, 'but I mean to do all I know, and you and +Helen must help me.' + +Lady Charlotte crossed her hands before her. + +'I may be a Liberal and a lion-hunter,' she said firmly, 'but I have +still conscience enough left not to aid and abet my nephew in throwing +himself away.' + +She had nearly slipped in 'again'; but just saved herself. + +'Your conscience is all a matter of the Duke,' he told her. 'Well, if +you won't help me, then Helen and I will have to arrange it by +ourselves.' + +But this did not suit Lady Charlotte at all. She had always played the +part of earthly providence to this particular nephew, and it was +abominable to her that the wretch, having refused for ten years to +provide her with a love affair to manage, should now manage one for +himself in spite of her. + +'You are such an arbitrary creature!' she said fretfully; 'you prance +about the world like Don Quixote, and expect me to play Sancho without a +murmur.' + +'How many drubbings have I brought you yet?' he asked her laughing. He +was really very fond of her. 'It is true there is a point of likeness; I +won't take your advice. But then why don't you give me better? It is +strange,' he added musing; 'women talk to us about love as if we were +too gross to understand it; and when they come to business, and they're +not in it themselves, they show the temper of attorneys.' + +'Love!' cried Lady Charlotte nettled. 'Do you mean to tell me, Hugh, +that you are really, _seriously_ in love with that girl?' + +'Well, I only know,' he said, thrusting his hands far into his pockets, +'that unless things mend I shall go out to California in the autumn and +try ranching.' + +Lady Charlotte burst into an angry laugh. He stood opposite to her, with +his orchid in his buttonhole, himself the fine flower of civilisation. +Ranching, indeed! However, he had done so many odd things in his life, +that, as she knew, it was never quite safe to decline to take him +seriously, and he looked at her now so defiantly, his clear greenish +eyes so wide open and alert, that her will began to waver under the +pressure of his. + +'What do you want me to do, sir?' + +His glance relaxed at once, and he laughingly explained to her that what +he asked of her was to keep the prey in sight. + +'I can do nothing for myself at present,' he said; 'I get on her nerves. +She was in love with that black-haired, _enfant du siecle_,--or rather, +she prefers to assume that she was--and I haven't given her time to +forget him. A serious blunder, and I deserve to suffer for it. Very +well, then, I retire, and I ask you and Helen to keep watch. Don't let +her go. Make yourselves nice to her; and, in fact, spoil me a little now +I am on the high road to forty, as you used to spoil me at fourteen.' + +Mr. Flaxman sat down by his aunt and kissed her hand, after which Lady +Charlotte was as wax before him. 'Thank heaven,' she reflected, 'in ten +days the Duke and all of them go out of town.' Retribution, therefore, +for wrong-doing would be tardy, if wrong-doing there must be. She could +but ruefully reflect that after all the girl was beautiful and gifted; +moreover, if Hugh would force her to befriend him in this criminality, +there might be a certain joy in thereby vindicating those Liberal +principles of hers, in which a scornful family had always refused to +believe. So, being driven into it, she would fain have done it boldly +and with a dash. But she could not rid her mind of the Duke, and her +performance all through, as a matter of fact, was blundering. + +However, she was for the time very gracious to Rose, being in truth +really fond of her; and Rose, however high she might hold her little +head, could find no excuse for quarrelling either with her or Lady +Helen. + +Towards the middle of June there was a grand ball given by Lady +Fauntleroy at Fauntleroy House, to which the two Miss Leyburns, by Lady +Helen's machinations, were invited. It was to be one of the events of +the season, and when the cards arrived 'to have the honour of meeting +their Royal Highnesses,' etc. etc., Mrs. Leyburn, good soul, gazed at +them with eyes which grew a little moist under her spectacles. She +wished Richard could have seen the girls dressed, 'just once.' But Rose +treated the cards with no sort of tenderness. 'If one could but put them +up to auction,' she said flippantly, holding them up, 'how many German +opera tickets I should get for nothing! I don't know what Agnes feels. +As for me, I have neither nerve enough for the people, nor money enough +for the toilette.' + +However, with eleven o'clock Lady Helen ran in, a fresh vision of blue +and white, to suggest certain dresses for the sisters which had occurred +to her in the visions of the night, 'original, adorable,--cost, a mere +nothing!' + +'My harpy,' she remarked, alluding to her dressmaker,'would ruin you +over them, of course. Your maid'--the Leyburns possessed a remarkably +clever one--'will make them divinely for twopence-halfpenny. Listen.' + +Rose listened; her eye kindled; the maid was summoned; and the +invitation accepted in Agnes's neatest hand. Even Catherine was roused +during the following ten days to a smiling indulgent interest in the +concerns of the workroom. + +The evening came, and Lady Helen fetched the sisters in her carriage. +The ball was a magnificent affair. The house was one of historical +interest and importance, and all that the ingenuity of the present could +do to give fresh life and gaiety to the pillared rooms, the carved +galleries and stately staircases of the past, had been done. The +ball-room, lined with Vandycks and Lelys, glowed softly with electric +light; the picture gallery had been banked with flowers and carpeted +with red, and the beautiful dresses of the women trailed up and down it, +challenging the satins of the Netschers and the Terburgs on the walls. + +Rose's card was soon full to overflowing. The young men present were of +the smartest, and would not willingly have bowed the knee to a nobody, +however pretty. But Lady Helen's devotion, the girl's reputation as a +musician, and her little nonchalant disdainful ways, gave her a kind of +prestige, which made her, for the time being at any rate, the equal of +anybody. Petitioners came and went away empty. Royalty was introduced, +and smiled both upon the beauty and the beauty's delicate and becoming +dress; and still Rose, though a good deal more flushed and erect than +usual, and though flesh and blood could not resist the contagious +pleasure which glistened even in the eyes of that sage Agnes, was more +than half-inclined to say with the Preacher, that all was vanity. + +Presently, as she stood waiting with her hand on her partner's arm +before gliding into a waltz, she saw Mr. Flaxman opposite to her, and +with him a young _debutante_ in white tulle--a thin, pretty, undeveloped +creature, whose sharp elbows and timid movements, together with the +blushing enjoyment glowing so frankly from her face, pointed her out as +the school-girl of sweet seventeen, just emancipated, and trying her +wings. + +'Ah, there is Lady Florence!' said her partner, a handsome young Hussar. +'This ball is in her honour, you know. She comes out to-night. What, +another cousin? Really she keeps too much in the family!' + +'Is Mr. Flaxman a cousin?' + +The young man replied that he was, and then, in the intervals of +waltzing, went on to explain to her the relationships of many of the +people present, till the whole gorgeous affair began to seem to Rose a +mere family party. Mr. Flaxman was of it. She was not. + +'Why am I here?' the little Jacobin said to herself fiercely as she +waltzed; 'it is foolish, unprofitable. I do not belong to them, nor they +to me!' + +'Miss Leyburn! charmed to see you!' cried Lady Charlotte, stopping her; +and then, in a loud whisper in her ear, 'Never saw you look better. Your +taste, or Helen's, that dress? The roses--exquisite!' + +Rose dropped her a little mock curtsey and whirled on again. + +'_Lady Florences_ are always well dressed,' thought the child angrily; +'and who notices it?' + +Another turn brought them against Mr. Flaxman and his partner. Mr. +Flaxman came at once to greet her with smiling courtesy. + +'I have a Cambridge friend to introduce to you--a beautiful youth. Shall +I find you by Helen? Now, Lady Florence, patience a moment. That corner +is too crowded. How good that last turn was!' + +And bending with a sort of kind chivalry over his partner, who looked at +him with the eyes of a joyous excited child, he led her away. Five +minutes later Rose, standing flushed by Lady Helen, saw him coming again +towards her, ushering a tall blue-eyed youth, whom he introduced to her +as 'Lord Waynflete.' The handsome boy looked at her with a boy's open +admiration, and beguiled her of a supper dance, while a group standing +near, a mother and three daughters, stood watching with cold eyes and +expressions which said plainly to the initiated that mere beauty was +receiving a ridiculous amount of attention. + +'I wouldn't have given it him, but it is _rude_--it is _bad manners_, +not even to ask!' the supposed victress was saying to herself, with +quivering lips, her eyes following not the Trinity freshman, who was +their latest captive, but an older man's well-knit figure, and a head on +which the fair hair was already growing scantily, receding a little from +the fine intellectual brows. + +An hour later she was again standing by Lady Helen, waiting for a +partner, when she saw two persons crossing the room, which was just +beginning to fill again for dancing, towards them. One was Mr. Flaxman, +the other was a small wrinkled old man, who leant upon his arm, +displaying the ribbon of the Garter as he walked. + +'Dear me,' said Lady Helen, a little fluttered, 'here is my uncle +Sedbergh. I thought they had left town.' + +The pair approached, and the old Duke bowed over his niece's hand with +the manners of a past generation. + +'I made Hugh give me an arm,' he said quaveringly. 'These floors are +homicidal. If I come down on them I shall bring an action.' + +'I thought you had all left town?' said Lady Helen. + +'Who can make plans with a Government in power pledged to every sort of +villainy and public plunder?' said the old man testily. 'I suppose +Varley's there to-night, helping to vote away my property and +Fauntleroy's.' + +'Some of his own too, if you please!' said Lady Helen smiling. 'Yes, I +suppose he is waiting for the division, or he would be here.' + +'I wonder why Providence blessed _me_ with such a Radical crew of +relations?' remarked the Duke. 'Hugh is a regular Communist. I never +heard such arguments in my life. And as for any idea of standing by his +order----' The old man shook his bald head and shrugged his small +shoulders with almost French vivacity. He had been handsome once, and +delicately featured, but now the left eye drooped, and the face had a +strong look of peevishness and ill-health. + +'Uncle,' interposed Lady Helen, 'let me introduce you to my two great +friends, Miss Leyburn, Miss Rose Leyburn.' + +The Duke bowed, looked at them through a pair of sharp eyes, seemed to +cogitate inwardly whether such a name had ever been known to him, and +turned to his nephew. + +'Get me out of this, Hugh, and I shall be obliged to you. Young people +may risk it, but if _I_ broke I shouldn't mend.' + +And still grumbling audibly about the floor, he hobbled off towards the +picture gallery. Mr. Flaxman had only time for a smiling backward glance +at Rose. + +'Have you given my pretty boy a dance?' + +'Yes,' she said, but with as much stiffness as she might have shown to +his uncle. + +'That's over,' said Lady Helen with relief. 'My uncle hardly meets any +of us now without a spar. He has never forgiven my father for going over +to the Liberals. And then he thinks we none of us consult him enough. No +more we do--except Aunt Charlotte. _She's_ afraid of him!' + +'Lady Charlotte afraid!' echoed Rose. + +'Odd, isn't it? The Duke avenges a good many victims on her, if they +only knew!' + +Lady Helen was called away, and Rose was left standing, wondering what +had happened to her partner. + +Opposite, Mr. Flaxman was pushing through a doorway, and Lady Florence +was again on his arm. At the same time she became conscious of a morsel +of chaperons' conversation such as, by the kind contrivances of fate, a +girl is tolerably sure to hear under similar circumstances. + +The _debutante's_ good looks, Hugh Flaxman's apparent susceptibility to +them, the possibility of results, and the satisfactory disposition of +the family goods and chattels that would be brought about by such a +match, the opportunity it would offer the man, too, of rehabilitating +himself socially after his first matrimonial escapade--Rose caught +fragments of all these topics as they were discussed by two old ladies, +presumably also of the family 'ring,' who gossiped behind her with more +gusto than discretion. Highmindedness, of course, told her to move away; +something else held her fast, till her partner came up for her. + +Then she floated away into the whirlwind of waltzers. But as she moved +round the room on her partner's arm, her delicate half-scornful grace +attracting look after look, the soul within was all aflame--aflame +against the serried ranks and phalanxes of this unfamiliar, hostile +world! She had just been reading Trevelyan's _Life of Fox_ aloud to her +mother, who liked occasionally to flavour her knitting with literature, +and she began now to revolve a passage from it, describing the upper +class of the last century, which had struck that morning on her quick +retentive memory: '"_A few thousand people who thought that the world +was made for them_"--did it not run so?--"_and that all outside their +own fraternity were unworthy of notice or criticism, bestowed upon each +other an amount of attention quite inconceivable.... Within the charmed +precincts there prevailed an easy and natural mode of intercourse, in +some respects singularly delightful._" Such, for instance, as the Duke +of Sedbergh was master of! Well, it was worth while, perhaps, to have +gained an experience, even at the expense of certain illusions, as to +the manners of dukes, and--and--as to the constancy of friends. But +never again--never again!' said the impetuous inner voice. 'I have my +world--they theirs!' + +But why so strong a flood of bitterness against our poor upper class, so +well intentioned for all its occasional lack of lucidity, should have +arisen in so young a breast it is a little difficult for the most +conscientious biographer to explain. She had partners to her heart's +desire; young Lord Waynflete used his utmost arts upon her to persuade +her that at least half a dozen numbers of the regular programme were +extras and therefore at his disposal; and when royalty supped, it was +graciously pleased to ordain that Lady Helen and her two companions +should sup behind the same folding-doors as itself, while beyond these +doors surged the inferior crowd of persons who had been specially +invited to 'meet their Royal Highnesses,' and had so far been held +worthy neither to dance nor to eat in the same room with them. But in +vain. Rose still felt herself, for all her laughing outward +_insouciance_, a poor, bruised, helpless chattel, trodden under the heel +of a world which was intolerably powerful, rich, and self-satisfied, the +odious product of 'family arrangements.' + +Mr. Flaxman sat far away at the same royal table as herself. Beside him +was the thin tall _debutante_. 'She is like one of the Gainsborough +princesses,' thought Rose, studying her with involuntary admiration. 'Of +course it is all plain. He will get everything he wants, and a Lady +Florence into the bargain. Radical, indeed! What nonsense!' + +Then it startled her to find that the eyes of Lady Florence's neighbour +were, as it seemed, on herself; or was he merely nodding to Lady +Helen?--and she began immediately to give a smiling attention to the man +on her left. + +An hour later she and Agnes and Lady Helen were descending the great +staircase on their way to their carriage. The morning light was flooding +through the chinks of the carefully veiled windows; Lady Helen was +yawning behind her tiny white hand, her eyes nearly asleep. But the two +sisters, who had not been up till three, on four preceding nights, like +their chaperon, were still almost as fresh as the flowers massed in the +hall below. + +'Ah, there is Hugh!' cried Lady Helen. 'How I hope he has found the +carriage!' + +At that moment Rose slipped on a spray of gardenia, which had dropped +from the bouquet of some predecessor. To prevent herself from falling +downstairs, she caught hold of the stem of a brazen chandelier fixed in +the balustrade. It saved her, but she gave her arm a most painful +wrench, and leant limp and white against the railing of the stairs. Lady +Helen turned at Agnes's exclamation, but before she could speak, as it +seemed, Mr. Flaxman, who had been standing talking just below them, was +on the stairs. + +'You have hurt your arm? Don't speak--take mine. Let me get you +downstairs out of the crush.' + +She was too far gone to resist, and when she was mistress of herself +again she found herself in the library with some water in her hand which +Mr. Flaxman had just put there. + +'Is it the playing hand?' said Lady Helen anxiously. + +'No,' said Rose, trying to laugh; 'the bowing elbow.' And she raised it, +but with a contortion of pain. + +'Don't raise it,' he said peremptorily. 'We will have a doctor here in a +moment, and have it bandaged.' + +He disappeared. Rose tried to sit up, seized with a frantic longing to +disobey him, and get off before he returned. Stinging the girl's mind +was the sense that it might all perfectly well seem to him a planned +appeal to his pity. + +'Agnes, help me up,' she said with a little involuntary groan; 'I shall +be better at home.' + +But both Lady Helen and Agnes laughed her to scorn, and she lay back +once more overwhelmed by fatigue and faintness. A few more minutes, and +a doctor appeared, caught by good luck in the next street. He pronounced +it a severe muscular strain, but nothing more; applied a lotion and +improvised a sling. Rose consulted him anxiously as to the interference +with her playing. + +'A week,' he said; 'no more, if you are careful.' + +Her pale face brightened. Her art had seemed specially dear to her of +late. + +'Hugh!' called Lady Helen, going to the door. '_Now_ we are ready for +the carriage.' + +Rose leaning on Agnes walked out into the hall. They found him there +waiting. + +'The carriage is here,' he said, bending towards her with a look and +tone which so stirred the fluttered nerves, that the sense of faintness +stole back upon her. 'Let me take you to it.' + +'Thank you,' she said coldly, but by a superhuman effort; 'my sister's +help is quite enough.' + +He followed them with Lady Helen. At the carriage door the sisters +hesitated a moment. Rose was helpless without a right hand. A little +imperative movement from behind displaced Agnes, and Rose felt herself +hoisted in by a strong arm. She sank into the farther corner. The glow +of the dawn caught her white delicate features, the curls on her +temples, all the silken confusion of her dress. Hugh Flaxman put in +Agnes and his sister, said something to Agnes about coming to inquire, +and raised his hat. Rose caught the quick force and intensity of his +eyes, and then closed her own, lost in a languid swoon of pain, memory, +and resentful wonder. + +Flaxman walked away down Park Lane through the chill morning quietness, +the gathering light striking over the houses beside him on to the misty +stretches of the Park. His hat was over his eyes, his hands thrust into +his pockets; a close observer would have noticed a certain trembling of +the lips. It was but a few seconds since her young warm beauty had been +for an instant in his arms; his whole being was shaken by it, and by +that last look of hers. 'Have I gone too far?' he asked himself +anxiously. 'Is it divinely true--_already_--that she resents being left +to herself? Oh, little rebel! You tried your best not to let me see. But +you _were_ angry, you were! Now, then, how to proceed? She is all fire, +all character; I rejoice in it. She will give me trouble; so much the +better. Poor little hurt thing! the fight is only beginning; but I will +make her do penance some day for all that loftiness to-night.' + +If these reflections betray to the reader a certain masterful note of +confidence in Mr. Flaxman's mind, he will perhaps find small cause to +regret that Rose _did_ give him a great deal of trouble. + +Nothing could have been more 'salutary,' to use his own word, than the +dance she led him during the next three weeks. She provoked him indeed +at moments so much that he was a hundred times on the point of trying to +seize his kingdom of heaven by violence, of throwing himself upon her +with a tempest shock of reproach and appeal. But some secret instinct +restrained him. She was wilful, she was capricious; she had a real and +powerful distraction in her art. He must be patient and risk nothing. + +He suspected, too, what was the truth--that Lady Charlotte was doing +harm. Rose, indeed, had grown so touchily sensitive that she found +offence in almost every word of Lady Charlotte's about her nephew. Why +should the apparently casual remarks of the aunt bear so constantly on +the subject of the nephew's social importance? Rose vowed to herself +that she needed no reminder of that station whereunto it had pleased God +to call her, and that Lady Charlotte might spare herself all those +anxieties and reluctances which the girl's quick sense detected, in +spite of the invitations so freely showered on Lerwick Gardens. + +The end of it all was that Hugh Flaxman found himself again driven into +a corner. At the bottom of him was still a confidence that would not +yield. Was it possible that he had ever given her some tiny involuntary +glimpse of it, and that but for that glimpse she would have let him make +his peace much more easily? At any rate, now he felt himself at the end +of his resources. + +'I must change the venue,' he said to himself; 'decidedly I must change +the venue.' + +So by the end of June he had accepted an invitation to fish in Norway +with a friend, and was gone. Rose received the news with a callousness +which made even Lady Helen want to shake her. + +On the eve of his journey, however, Hugh Flaxman had at last confessed +himself to Catherine and Robert. His obvious plight made any further +scruples on their part futile, and what they had they gave him in the +way of sympathy. Also Robert, gathering that he already knew much, and +without betraying any confidence of Rose's, gave him a hint or two on +the subject of Langham. But more not the friendliest mortal could do for +him, and Flaxman went off into exile announcing to a mocking Elsmere +that he should sit pensive on the banks of Norwegian rivers till fortune +had had time to change. + + + + +BOOK VII + +GAIN AND LOSS + + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +A hot July had well begun, but still Elsmere was toiling on in Elgood +Street, and could not persuade himself to think of a holiday. Catherine +and the child he had driven away more than once, but the claims upon +himself were becoming so absorbing he did not know how to go even for a +few weeks. There were certain individuals in particular who depended on +him from day to day. One was Charles Richards's widow. The poor +desperate creature had put herself abjectly into Elsmere's hands. He had +sent her to an asylum, where she had been kindly and skilfully treated, +and after six weeks' abstinence she had just returned to her children, +and was being watched by himself and a competent woman neighbour, whom +he had succeeded in interesting in the case. + +Another was a young 'secret springer,' to use the mysterious terms of +the trade--Robson by name--whom Elsmere had originally known as a clever +workman belonging to the watchmaking colony, and a diligent attendant +from the beginning on the Sunday lectures. He was now too ill to leave +his lodgings, and his sickly pessimist personality had established a +special hold on Robert. He was dying of tumour in the throat, and had +become a torment to himself and a disgust to others. There was a spark +of wayward genius in him, however, which enabled him to bear his ills +with a mixture of savage humour and clear-eyed despair. In general +outlook he was much akin to the author of the _City of Dreadful Night_, +whose poems he read; the loathsome spectacles of London had filled him +with a kind of sombre energy of revolt against all that is. And now that +he could only work intermittently, he would sit brooding for hours, +startling the fellow-workmen who came in to see him with ghastly +Heine-like jokes on his own hideous disease, living no one exactly knew +how, though it was supposed on supplies sent him by a shopkeeper uncle +in the country, and constantly on the verge, as all his acquaintances +felt, of some ingenious expedient or other for putting an end to himself +and his troubles. He was unmarried, and a misogynist to boot. No woman +willingly went near him, and he tended himself. How Robert had gained +any hold upon him no one could guess. But from the moment when Elsmere, +struck in the lecture-room by the pallid ugly face and swathed neck, +began regularly to go and see him, the elder man felt instinctively that +virtue had gone out of him, and that in some subtle way yet another life +had become pitifully, silently dependent on his own stock of strength +and comfort. + +His lecturing and teaching work also was becoming more and more the +instrument of far-reaching change, and therefore more and more difficult +to leave. The thoughts of God, the image of Jesus, which were active and +fruitful in his own mind, had been gradually passing from the one into +the many, and Robert watched the sacred transforming emotion, once +nurtured at his own heart, now working among the crowd of men and women +his fiery speech had gathered round him, with a trembling joy, a humble +prostration of the soul before the Eternal Truth, no words can fitly +describe. With an ever-increasing detachment of mind from the objects of +self and sense, he felt himself a tool in the Great Workman's hand. +'Accomplish Thy purposes in me,' was the cry of his whole heart and +life; 'use me to the utmost; spend every faculty I have, O "Thou who +mouldest men"!' + +But in the end his work itself drove him away. A certain memorable +Saturday evening brought it about. It had been his custom of late to +spend an occasional evening hour after his night-school work in the +North R---- Club, of which he was now by invitation a member. Here, in +one of the inner rooms, he would stand against the mantelpiece chatting, +smoking often with the men. Everything came up in turn to be discussed; +and Robert was at least as ready to learn from the practical workers +about him as to teach. But in general these informal talks and debates +became the supplement of the Sunday lectures. Here he met Andrews and +the Secularist crew face to face; here he grappled in Socratic fashion +with objections and difficulties, throwing into the task all his charm +and all his knowledge, a man at once of no pretensions and of unfailing +natural dignity. Nothing, so far, had served his cause and his influence +so well as these moments of free discursive intercourse. The mere +orator, the mere talker, indeed, would never have gained any permanent +hold; but the life behind gave weight to every acute or eloquent word, +and importance even to those mere sallies of a boyish enthusiasm which +were still common enough in him. + +He had already visited the club once during the week preceding this +Saturday. On both occasions there was much talk of the growing +popularity and efficiency of the Elgood Street work, of the numbers +attending the lectures, the story-telling, the Sunday school, and of the +way in which the attractions of it had spread into other quarters of the +parish, exciting there, especially among the clergy of St. Wilfrid's, an +anxious and critical attention. The conversation on Saturday night, +however, took a turn of its own. Robert felt in it a new and curious +note of _responsibility_. The men present were evidently beginning to +regard the work as _their_ work also, and its success as their interest. +It was perfectly natural, for not only had most of them been his +supporters and hearers from the beginning, but some of them were now +actually teaching in the night-school or helping in the various branches +of the large and overflowing boys' club. He listened to them for a while +in his favourite attitude, leaning against the mantelpiece, throwing in +a word or two now and then as to how this or that part of the work might +be amended or expanded. Then suddenly a kind of inspiration seemed to +pass from them to him. Bending forward as the talk dropped a moment, he +asked them, with an accent more emphatic than usual, whether in view of +this collaboration of theirs, which was becoming more valuable to him +and his original helpers every week, it was not time for a new +departure. + +'Suppose I drop my dictatorship,' he said, 'suppose we set up +parliamentary government, are you ready to take your share? Are you +ready to combine, to commit yourselves? Are you ready for an effort to +turn this work into something lasting and organic?' + +The men gathered round him smoked on in silence for a minute. Old +Macdonald, who had been sitting contentedly puffing away in a corner +peculiarly his own, and dedicated to the glorification--in broad +Berwickshire--of the experimental philosophers, laid down his pipe and +put on his spectacles, that he might grasp the situation better. Then +Lestrange, in a dry cautious way, asked Elsmere to explain himself +further. + +Robert began to pace up and down, talking out his thought, his eye +kindling. + +But in a minute or two he stopped abruptly, with one of those striking +rapid gestures characteristic of him. + +'But no mere social and educational body, mind you!' and his bright +commanding look swept round the circle. 'A good thing surely, "yet is +there better than it." The real difficulty of every social effort--you +know it and I know it--lies, not in the planning of the work, but in the +kindling of will and passion enough to carry it _through_. And that can +only be done by religion--by faith.' + +He went back to his old leaning attitude, his hands behind him. The men +gazed at him--at the slim figure, the transparent changing face--with a +kind of fascination, but were still silent, till Macdonald said slowly, +taking off his glasses again and clearing his throat-- + +'You'll be aboot starrtin' a new church, I'm thinkin', Misther Elsmere?' + +'If you like,' said Robert impetuously. 'I have no fear of the great +words. You can do nothing by despising the past and its products; you +can also do nothing by being too much afraid of them, by letting them +choke and stifle your own life. Let the new wine have its new bottles if +it must, and never mind words. Be content to be a new "sect," +"conventicle," or what not, so long as you feel that you are _something_ +with a life and purpose of its own, in this tangle of a world.' + +Again he paused with knit brows, thinking. Lestrange sat with his elbows +on his knees studying him, the spare gray hair brushed back tightly from +the bony face, on the lips the slightest Voltairean smile. Perhaps it +was the coolness of his look which insensibly influenced Robert's next +words. + +'However, I don't imagine we should call ourselves a church! Something +much humbler will do, if you choose ever to make anything of these +suggestions of mine. "Association," "society," "brotherhood," what you +will! But always, if I can persuade you, with something in the name, and +everything in the body itself, to show that for the members of it life +rests still, as all life worth having has everywhere rested on _trust_ +and _memory_!--_trust_ in the God of experience and history; _memory_ of +that God's work in man, by which alone we know Him and can approach Him. +Well, of that work--I have tried to prove it to you a thousand +times--Jesus of Nazareth has become to _us_, by the evolution of +circumstance, the most moving, the most efficacious of all types and +epitomes. We have made our protest--we are daily making it--in the face +of society, against the fictions and overgrowths which at the present +time are excluding him more and more from human love. But now, suppose +we turn our backs on negation, and have done with mere denial! Suppose +we throw all our energies into the practical building of a new house of +faith, the gathering and organising of a new Company of Jesus!' + +Other men had been stealing in while he was speaking. The little room +was nearly full. It was strange, the contrast between the squalid +modernness of the scene, with its incongruous sights and sounds, the +Club-room, painted in various hideous shades of cinnamon and green, the +smoke, the lines and groups of working-men in every sort of working +dress, the occasional rumbling of huge waggons past the window, the +click of glasses and cups in the refreshment bar outside, and this stir +of spiritual passion which any competent observer might have felt +sweeping through the little crowd as Robert spoke, connecting what was +passing there with all that is sacred and beautiful in the history of +the world. + +After another silence a young fellow, in a shabby velvet coat, stood up. +He was commonly known among his fellow-potters as 'the hartist,' because +of his long hair, his little affectations of dress, and his aesthetic +susceptibilities generally. The wits of the Club made him their target, +but the teasing of him that went on was more or less tempered by the +knowledge that in his own queer way he had brought up and educated two +young sisters almost from infancy, and that his sweetheart had been +killed before his eyes a year before in a railway accident. + +'I dun know,' he said in a high treble voice, 'I dun know whether I +speak for anybody but myself--very likely not; but what I _do_ know,' +and he raised his right hand and shook it with a gesture of curious +felicity, 'is this--what Mr. Elsmere starts I'll join; where he goes +I'll go; what's good enough for him's good enough for me. He's put a new +heart and a new stomach into me, and what I've got he shall have, +whenever it pleases 'im to call for it! So if he wants to run a new +thing against or alongside the old uns, and he wants me to help him with +it--I don't know as I'm very clear what he's driving at, nor what good I +can do 'im--but when Tom Wheeler's asked for he'll be there!' + +A deep murmur, rising almost into a shout of assent ran through the +little assembly. Robert bent forward, his eye glistening, a moved +acknowledgment in his look and gesture. But in reality a pang ran +through the fiery soul. It was 'the personal estimate,' after all, that +was shaping their future and his and the idealist was up in arms for his +idea, sublimely jealous lest any mere personal fancy should usurp its +power and place. + +A certain amount of desultory debate followed as to the possible +outlines of a possible organisation, and as to the observances which +might be devised to mark its religious character. As it flowed on the +atmosphere grew more and more electric. A new passion, though still +timid and awestruck, seemed to shine from the looks of the men standing +or sitting round the central figure. Even Lestrange lost his smile under +the pressure of that strange subdued expectancy about him; and when +Robert walked homeward, about midnight, there weighed upon him an almost +awful sense of crisis, of an expanding future. + +He let himself in softly and went into his study. There he sank into a +chair and fainted. He was probably not unconscious very long, but after +he had struggled back to his senses, and was lying stretched on the sofa +among the books with which it was littered, the solitary candle in the +big room throwing weird shadows about him, a moment of black depression +overtook him. It was desolate and terrible, like a prescience of death. +How was it he had come to feel so ill? Suddenly, as he looked back over +the preceding weeks, the physical weakness and disturbance which had +marked them, and which he had struggled through, paying as little heed +as possible, took shape, spectre-like, in his mind. + +And at the same moment a passionate rebellion against weakness and +disablement arose in him. He sat up dizzily, his head in his hands. + +'Rest--strength,' he said to himself, with strong inner resolve, 'for +the work's sake!' + +He dragged himself up to bed and said nothing to Catherine till the +morning. Then, with boyish brightness, he asked her to take him and the +babe off without delay to the Norman coast, vowing that he would lounge +and idle for six whole weeks if she would let him. Shocked by his looks, +she gradually got from him the story of the night before. As he told it, +his swoon was a mere untoward incident and hindrance in a spiritual +drama, the thrill of which, while he described it, passed even to her. +The contrast, however, between the strong hopes she felt pulsing through +him, and his air of fragility and exhaustion, seemed to melt the heart +within her, and make her whole being, she hardly knew why, one sensitive +dread. She sat beside him, her head laid against his shoulder, oppressed +by a strange and desolate sense of her comparatively small share in this +ardent life. In spite of his tenderness and devotion, she felt often as +though he were no longer hers--as though a craving hungry world, whose +needs were all dark and unintelligible to her, were asking him from her, +claiming to use as roughly and prodigally as it pleased the quick mind +and delicate frame. + +As to the schemes developing round him, she could not take them in +whether for protest or sympathy. She could think only of where to go, +what doctor to consult, how she could persuade him to stay away long +enough. + +There was little surprise in Elgood Street when Elsmere announced that +he must go off for a while. He so announced it that everybody who heard +him understood that his temporary withdrawal was to be the mere +preparation for a great effort--the vigil before the tourney; and the +eager friendliness with which he was met sent him off in good heart. + + * * * * * + +Three or four days later he, Catherine and Mary were at Petites Dalles, +a little place on the Norman coast, near Fecamp, with which he had first +made acquaintance years before, when he was at Oxford. + +Here all that in London had been oppressive in the August heat suffered +'a sea change,' and became so much matter for physical delight. It was +fiercely hot indeed. Every morning, between five and six o'clock, +Catherine would stand by the little white-veiled window, in the dewy +silence, to watch the eastern shadows spreading sharply already into a +blazing world of sun, and see the tall poplar just outside shooting into +a quivering changeless depth of blue. Then, as early as possible, they +would sally forth before the glare became unbearable. The first event of +the day was always Mary's bathe, which gradually became a spectacle for +the whole beach, so ingenious were the blandishments of the father who +wooed her into the warm sandy shallows, and so beguiling the glee and +pluck of the two-year-old English _bebe_. By eleven the heat out of +doors grew intolerable, and they would stroll back--father and mother +and trailing child--past the hotels on the _plage_, along the irregular +village lane, to the little house where they had established +themselves, with Mary's nurse and a French _bonne_ to look after them; +would find the green wooden shutters drawn close; the _dejeuner_ waiting +for them in the cool bare room; and the scent of the coffee penetrating +from the kitchen, where the two maids kept up a dumb but perpetual +warfare. Then afterwards Mary, emerging from her sun-bonnet, would be +tumbled into her white bed upstairs, and lie, a flushed image of sleep, +till the patter of her little feet on the boards which alone separated +one storey from the other, warned mother and nurse that an imp of +mischief was let loose again. Meanwhile Robert, in the carpetless +_salon_, would lie back in the rickety armchair which was its only +luxury, lazily dozing and dreaming, Balzac, perhaps, in his hand, but +quite another _comedie humaine_ unrolling itself vaguely meanwhile in +the contriving optimist mind. + +Petites Dalles was not fashionable yet, though it aspired to be; but it +could boast of a deputy, and a senator, and a professor of the College +de France, as good as any at Etretat, a tired journalist or two, and a +sprinkling of Rouen men of business. Robert soon made friends among +them, _more suo_, by dint of a rough-and-ready French, spoken with the +most unblushing accent imaginable, and lounged along the sands through +many an amusing and sociable hour with one or other of his new +acquaintances. + +But by the evening husband and wife would leave the crowded beach, and +mount by some tortuous dusty way on to the high plateau through which +was cleft far below the wooded fissure of the village. Here they seemed +to have climbed the beanstalk into a new world. The rich Normandy +country lay all round them--the cornfields, the hedgeless tracts of +white-flowered lucerne or crimson clover, dotted by the orchard trees +which make one vast garden of the land as one sees it from a height. On +the fringe of the cliff, where the soil became too thin and barren even +for French cultivation, there was a wild belt, half heather, half +tangled grass and flower-growth, which the English pair loved for their +own special reasons. Bathed in light, cooled by the evening wind, the +patches of heather glowing, the tall grasses swaying in the breeze, +there were moments when its wide, careless, dusty beauty reminded them +poignantly, and yet most sweetly, of the home of their first unclouded +happiness, of the Surrey commons and wildernesses. + +One evening they were sitting in the warm dusk by the edge of a little +dip of heather sheltered by a tuft of broom, when suddenly they heard +the purring sound of the night-jar, and immediately after the bird +itself lurched past them, and as it disappeared into the darkness they +caught several times the characteristic click of the wing. + +Catherine raised her hand and laid it on Robert's. The sudden tears +dropped on to her cheeks. + +'Did you hear it, Robert?' + +He drew her to him. These involuntary signs of an abiding pain in her +always smote him to the heart. + +'I am not unhappy, Robert,' she said at last, raising her head. 'No; if +you will only get well and strong. I have submitted. It is not for +myself, but----' + +For what then? Merely the touchingness of mortal things as such?--of +youth, of hope, of memory? + +Choking down a sob, she looked seaward over the curling flame-coloured +waves, while he held her hand close and tenderly. No--she was not +unhappy. Something, indeed, had gone for ever out of that early joy. Her +life had been caught and nipped in the great inexorable wheel of things. +It would go in some sense maimed to the end. But the bitter +self-torturing of that first endless year was over. Love, and her +husband, and the thousand subtle forces of a changing world had +conquered. She would live and die steadfast to the old faiths. But her +present mind and its outlook was no more the mind of her early married +life than the Christian philosophy of to-day is the Christian philosophy +of the Middle Ages. She was not conscious of change, but change there +was. She had, in fact, undergone that dissociation of the moral judgment +from a special series of religious formulae which is the crucial, the +epoch-making fact of our day. 'Unbelief,' says the orthodox preacher, +'is sin, and implies it': and while he speaks, the saint in the +unbeliever gently smiles down his argument, and suddenly, in the rebel +of yesterday men see the rightful heir of to-morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +Meanwhile the Leyburns were at Burwood again. Rose's summer, indeed, was +much varied by visits to country houses--many of them belonging to +friends and acquaintances of the Flaxman family--by concerts, and the +demands of several new and exciting artistic friendships. But she was +seldom loth to come back to the little bare valley and the gray-walled +house. Even the rain which poured down in August, quite unabashed by any +consciousness of fine weather elsewhere, was not as intolerable to her +as in past days. + +The girl was not herself; there was visible in her not only that general +softening and deepening of character which had been the consequence of +her trouble in the spring, but a painful _ennui_ she could hardly +disguise, a longing for she knew not what. She was beginning to take the +homage paid to her gift and her beauty with a quiet dignity, which was +in no sense false modesty, but implied a certain clearness of vision, +curious and disquieting in so young and dazzling a creature. And when +she came home from her travels she would develop a taste for long +walks, breasting the mountains in rain or sun, penetrating to their +austerest solitudes alone, as though haunted by that profound saying of +Obermann, 'Man is not made for enjoyment only--_la tristesse fait aussi +partie de ses vastes besoins_.' + +What, indeed, was it that ailed her? In her lonely moments, especially +in those moments among the high fells, beside some little tarn or +streamlet, while the sheets of mist swept by her, or the great clouds +dappled the spreading sides of the hills, she thought often of +Langham--of that first thrill of passion which had passed through her, +delusive and abortive, like one of those first thrills of spring which +bring out the buds, only to provide victims for the frost. Now with her +again 'a moral east wind was blowing.' The passion was gone. The thought +of Langham still roused in her a pity that seemed to strain at her +heartstrings. But was it really she, really this very Rose, who had +rested for that one intoxicating instant on his breast? She felt a sort +of bitter shame over her own shallowness of feeling. She must surely be +a poor creature, else how could such a thing have befallen her and have +left so little trace behind? + +And then, her hand dabbling in the water, her face raised to the blind +friendly mountains, she would go dreaming far afield. Little vignettes +of London would come and go on the inner retina; smiles and sighs would +follow one another. + +'_How kind he was that time! how amusing this!_' + +Or, '_How provoking he was that afternoon! how cold that evening!_' + +Nothing else--the pronoun remained ambiguous. + +'I want a friend!' she said to herself once as she was sitting far up in +the bosom of High Fell, 'I want a friend badly. Yet my lover deserts me, +and I send away my friend!' + +One afternoon Mrs. Thornburgh, the vicar, and Rose were wandering round +the churchyard together, enjoying a break of sunny weather after days of +rain. Mrs. Thornburgh's personal accent, so to speak, had grown perhaps +a little more defined, a little more emphatic even, than when we first +knew her. The vicar, on the other hand, was a trifle grayer, a trifle +more submissive, as though on the whole, in the long conjugal contest of +life, he was getting clearly worsted as the years went on. But the +performance through which his wife was now taking him tried him +exceptionally, and she only kept him to it with difficulty. She had had +an attack of bronchitis in the spring, and was still somewhat +delicate--a fact which to his mind gave her an unfair advantage of him. +For she would make use of it to keep constantly before him ideas which +he disliked, and in which he considered she took a morbid and unbecoming +pleasure. The vicar was of opinion that when his latter end overtook him +he should meet it on the whole as courageously as other men. But he was +altogether averse to dwelling upon it, or the adjuncts of it, +beforehand. Mrs. Thornburgh, however, since her illness had awoke to +that inquisitive affectionate interest in these very adjuncts which +many women feel. And it was extremely disagreeable to the vicar. + +At the present moment she was engaged in choosing the precise spots in +the little churchyard where it seemed to her it would be pleasant to +rest. There was one corner in particular which attracted her, and she +stood now looking at it with measuring eyes and dissatisfied mouth. + +'William, I wish you would come here and help me!' + +The vicar took no notice, but went on talking to Rose. + +'William!' imperatively. + +The vicar turned unwillingly. + +'You know, William, if you wouldn't mind lying with your feet _that_ +way, there would be just room for me. But, of course, if you _will_ have +them the other way----' The shoulders in the old black silk mantle went +up, and the gray curls shook dubiously. + +The vicar's countenance showed plainly that he thought the remark worse +than irrelevant. + +'My dear,' he said crossly, 'I am not thinking of those things, nor do I +wish to think of them. Everything has its time and place. It is close on +tea, and Miss Rose says she must be going home.' + +Mrs. Thornburgh again shook her head, this time with a disapproving +sigh. + +'You talk, William,' she said severely, 'as if you were a young man, +instead of being turned sixty-six last birthday.' + +And again she measured the spaces with her eye, checking the results +aloud. But the vicar was obdurately deaf. He strolled on with Rose, who +was chattering to him about a visit to Manchester, and the little church +gate clicked behind them. Hearing it, Mrs. Thornburgh relaxed her +measurements. They were only really interesting to her after all when +the vicar was by. She hurried after them as fast as her short squat +figure would allow, and stopped midway to make an exclamation. + +'A carriage!' she said, shading her eyes with a very plump hand, +'stopping at Greybarns!' + +The one road of the valley was visible from the churchyard, winding +along the bottom of the shallow green trough, for at least two miles. +Greybarns was a farmhouse just beyond Burwood, about half a mile away. + +Mrs. Thornburgh moved on, her matronly face aglow with interest. + +'Mary Jenkinson taken ill!' she said. 'Of course, that's Doctor Baker! +Well, it's to be hoped it won't be twins _this_ time. But, as I told her +last Sunday, "It's constitutional, my dear." I knew a woman who had +three pairs! Five o'clock now. Well, about _seven_ it'll be worth while +sending to inquire.' + +When she overtook the vicar and his companion, she began to whisper +certain particulars into the ear that was not on Rose's side. The vicar, +who, like Uncle Toby, was possessed of a fine natural modesty, would +have preferred that his wife should refrain from whispering on these +topics in Rose's presence. But he submitted lest opposition should +provoke her into still more audible improprieties; and Rose walked on a +step or two in front of the pair, her eyes twinkling a little. At the +vicarage gate she was let off without the customary final gossip. Mrs. +Thornburgh was so much occupied in the fate hanging over Mary Jenkinson +that she, for once, forgot to catechise Rose as to any marriageable +young men she might have come across in a recent visit to a great +country-house of the neighbourhood; an operation which formed the +invariable pendant to any of Rose's absences. + +So, with a smiling nod to them both, the girl turned homewards. As she +did so she became aware of a man's figure walking along the space of +road between Greybarns and Burwood, the western light behind it. + +Dr. Baker? But even granting that Mrs. Jenkinson had brought him five +miles on a false alarm, in the provoking manner of matrons, the shortest +professional visit could not be over in this time. + +She looked again, shading her eyes. She was nearing the gate of Burwood, +and involuntarily slackened step. The man who was approaching, catching +sight of the slim girlish figure in the broad hat and pink and white +cotton dress, hurried up. The colour rushed to Rose's cheek. In another +minute she and Hugh Flaxman were face to face. + +She could not hide her astonishment. + +'Why are you not in Scotland?' she said after she had given him her +hand. 'Lady Helen told me last week she expected you in Ross-shire.' + +Directly the words left her mouth she felt she had given him an opening. +And why had Nature plagued her with this trick of blushing? + +'Because I am here!' he said smiling, his keen dancing eyes looking down +upon her. He was bronzed as she had never seen him. And never had he +seemed to bring with him such an atmosphere of cool pleasant strength. +'I have slain so much since the first of July that I can slay no more. I +am not like other men. The Nimrod in me is easily gorged, and goes to +sleep after a while. So this is Burwood? + +He had caught her just on the little sweep leading to the gate, and now +his eye swept quickly over the modest old house, with its trim garden, +its overgrown porch and open casement windows. She dared not ask him +again why he was there. In the properest manner she invited him 'to come +in and see mamma.' + +'I hope Mrs. Leyburn is better than she was in town? I shall be +delighted to see her. But must you go in so soon? I left my carriage +half a mile below, and have been revelling in the sun and air. I am loth +to go indoors yet awhile. Are you busy? Would it trouble you to put me +in the way to the head of the valley? Then, if you will allow me, I will +present myself later.' + +Rose thought his request as little in the ordinary line of things as his +appearance. But she turned and walked beside him, pointing out the crags +at the head, the great sweep of High Fell, and the pass over to +Ullswater, with as much _sangfroid_ as she was mistress of. + +He, on his side, informed her that on his way to Scotland he had +bethought himself that he had never seen the Lakes, that he had stopped +at Whinborough, was bent on walking over the High Fell pass to +Ullswater, and making his way thence to Ambleside, Grasmere, and +Keswick. + +'But you are much too late to-day to get to Ullswater?' cried Rose +incautiously. + +'Certainly. You see my hotel,' and he pointed, smiling, to a white +farmhouse standing just at the bend of the valley, where the road turned +towards Whinborough. 'I persuaded the good woman there to give me a bed +for the night, took my carriage a little farther, then, knowing I had +friends in these parts, I came on to explore.' + +Rose angrily felt her flush getting deeper and deeper. + +'You are the first tourist,' she said coolly, 'who has ever stayed in +Whindale.' + +'Tourist! I repudiate the name. I am a worshipper at the shrine of +Wordsworth and Nature. Helen and I long ago defined a tourist as a being +with straps. I defy you to discover a strap about me, and I left my +Murray in the railway carriage.' + +He looked at her laughing. She laughed too. The infection of his strong +sunny presence was irresistible. In London it had been so easy to stand +on her dignity, to remember whenever he was friendly that the night +before he had been distant. In these green solitudes it was not easy to +be anything but natural--the child of the moment! + +'You are neither more practical nor more economical than when I saw you +last,' she said demurely. 'When did you leave Norway?' + +They wandered on past the vicarage talking fast. Mr. Flaxman, who had +been joined for a time, on his fishing tour, by Lord Waynflete, was +giving her an amusing account of the susceptibility to titles shown by +the primitive democrats of Norway. As they passed a gap in the vicarage +hedge, laughing and chatting. Rose became aware of a window and a gray +head hastily withdrawn. Mr. Flaxman was puzzled by the merry flash, +instantly suppressed, that shot across her face. + +Presently they reached the hamlet of High Close, and the house where +Mary Backhouse died, and where her father and the poor bedridden Jim +still lived. They mounted the path behind it, and plunged into the hazel +plantation which had sheltered Robert and Catherine on a memorable +night. But when they were through it, Rose turned to the right along a +scrambling path leading to the top of the first great shoulder of High +Fell. It was a steep climb, though a short one, and it seemed to Rose +that when she had once let him help her over a rock her hand was never +her own again. He kept it an almost constant prisoner on one pretext or +another till they were at the top. + +Then she sank down on a rock out of breath. He stood beside her, lifting +his brown wideawake from his brow. The air below had been warm and +relaxing. Here it played upon them both with a delicious life-giving +freshness. He looked round on the great hollow bosom of the fell, the +crags buttressing it on either hand, the winding greenness of the +valley, the white sparkle of the river. + +'It reminds me a little of Norway. The same austere and frugal +beauty--the same bare valley floors. But no pines, no peaks, no fiords!' + +'No!' said Rose scornfully, 'we are not Norway, and we are not +Switzerland. To prevent disappointment, I may at once inform you that we +have no glaciers, and that there is perhaps only one place in the +district where a man who was not an idiot could succeed in killing +himself.' + +He looked at her, calmly smiling. + +'You are angry,' he said, 'because I make comparisons. You are wholly on +a wrong scent. I never saw a scene in the world that pleased me half as +much as this bare valley, that gray roof'--and he pointed to Burwood +among its trees--'and this knoll of rocky ground.' + +His look travelled back to her, and her eyes sank beneath it. He threw +himself down on the short grass beside her. + +'It rained this morning,' she still had the spirit to murmur under her +breath. + +He took not the smallest heed. + +'Do you know,' he said--and his voice dropped--'can you guess at all why +I am here to-day?' + +'You had never seen the Lakes,' she repeated in a prim voice, her eyes +still cast down, the corners of her mouth twitching. 'You stopped at +Whinborough, intending to take the pass over to Ullswater, thence to +make your way to Ambleside and Keswick--or was it to Keswick and +Ambleside?' + +She looked up innocently. But the flashing glance she met abashed her +again. + +'_Taquine!_' he said, 'but you shall not laugh me out of countenance. If +I said all that to you just now, may I be forgiven. One purpose, one +only, brought me from Norway, forbade me to go to Scotland, drew me to +Whinborough, guided me up your valley--the purpose of seeing your face!' + +It could not be said at that precise moment that he had attained it. +Rather she seemed bent on hiding that face quite away from him. It +seemed to him an age before, drawn by the magnetism of his look, her +hands dropped, and she faced him, crimson, her breath fluttering a +little. Then she would have spoken, but he would not let her. Very +tenderly and quietly his hand possessed itself of hers as he knelt +beside her. + +'I have been in exile for two months--you sent me. I saw that I troubled +you in London. You thought I was pursuing you--pressing you. Your manner +said "Go!" and I went. But do you think that for one day, or hour, or +moment I have thought of anything else in those Norway woods but of you +and of this blessed moment when I should be at your feet, as I am now?' + +She trembled. Her hand seemed to leap in his. His gaze melted, enwrapped +her. He bent forward. In another moment her silence would have so +answered for her that his covetous arms would have stolen about her for +good and all. But suddenly a kind of shiver ran through her--a shiver +which was half memory, half shame. She drew back violently, covering her +eyes with her hand. + +'Oh no, no!' she cried, and her other hand struggled to get free, +'don't, don't talk to me so--I have a--a--confession.' + +He watched her, his lips trembling a little, a smile of the most +exquisite indulgence and understanding dawning in his eyes. Was she +going to confess to him what he knew so well already? If he could only +force her to say it on his breast. + +But she held him at arm's length. + +'You remember--you remember Mr. Langham?' + +'Remember him!' echoed Mr. Flaxman fervently. + +'That thought-reading night at Lady Charlotte's, on the way home, he +spoke to me. I said I loved him. I _did_ love him; I let him kiss me!' + +Her flush had quite faded. He could hardly tell whether she was yielding +or defiant as the words burst from her. + +An expression, half trouble, half compunction, came into his face. + +'I knew,' he said very low; 'or rather, I guessed.' And for an instant +it occurred to him to unburden himself, to ask her pardon for that +espionage of his. But no, no; not till he had her safe. 'I guessed, I +mean, that there had been something grave between you. I saw you were +sad. I would have given the world to comfort you.' + +Her lip quivered childishly. + +'I said I loved him that night. The next morning he wrote to me that it +could never be.' + +He looked at her a moment embarrassed. The conversation was not easy. +Then the smile broke once more. + +'And you have forgotten him as he deserved. If I were not sure of that I +could wish him all the tortures of the _Inferno_! As it is, I cannot +think of him; I cannot let you think of him. Sweet, do you know that +ever since I first saw you the one thought of my days, the dream of my +nights, the purpose of my whole life, has been to win you? There was +another in the field; I knew it. I stood by and waited. He failed you--I +knew he must in some form or other. Then I was hasty, and you resented +it. Little tyrant, you made yourself a Rose with many thorns! But, tell +me, tell me, it is all over--your pain, my waiting. Make yourself sweet +to me! unfold to me at last?' + +An instant she wavered. His bliss was almost in his grasp. Then she +sprang up, and Flaxman found himself standing by her, rebuffed and +surprised. + +'No, no!' she cried, holding out her hands to him though all the time. +'Oh, it is too soon! I should despise myself, I do despise myself. It +tortures me that I can change and forget so easily; it ought to torture +you. Oh, don't ask me yet to--to----' + +'To be my wife,' he said calmly, his cheek a little flushed, his eye +meeting hers with a passion in it that strove so hard for self-control +it was almost sternness. + +'Not yet!' she pleaded, and then, after a moment's hesitation, she broke +into the most appealing smiles, though the tears were in her eyes, +hurrying out the broken, beseeching words. 'I want a friend so much--a +real friend. Since Catherine left I have had no one. I have been running +riot. Take me in hand. Write to me, scold me, advise me, I will be your +pupil, I will tell you everything. You seem to me so fearfully wise, so +much older. Oh, don't be vexed. And--and--in six months----' + +She turned away, rosy as her name. He held her still, so rigidly, that +her hands were almost hurt. The shadow of the hat fell over her eyes; +the delicate outlines of the neck and shoulders in the pretty pale dress +were defined against the green hill background. He studied her +deliberately, a hundred different expressions sweeping across his face. +A debate of the most feverish interest was going on within him. Her +seriousness at the moment, the chances of the future, her character, his +own--all these knotty points entered into it, had to be weighed and +decided with lightning rapidity. But Hugh Flaxman was born under a lucky +star, and the natal charm held good. + +At last he gave a long breath; he stooped and kissed her hands. + +'So be it. For six months I will be your guardian, your friend, your +teasing implacable censor. At the end of that time I will be--well, +never mind what. I give you fair warning.' + +He released her. Rose clasped her hands before her and stood drooping. +Now that she had gained her point, all her bright mocking independence +seemed to have vanished. She might have been in reality the tremulous +timid child she seemed. His spirits rose; he began to like the role she +had assigned to him. The touch of unexpectedness, in all she said and +did, acted with exhilarating force on his fastidious romantic sense. + +'Now, then,' he said, picking up her gloves from the grass, 'you have +given me my rights; I will begin to exercise them at once. I must take +you home, the clouds are coming up again, and on the way will you +kindly give me a full, true, and minute account of these two months +during which you have been so dangerously left to your own devices?' + +She hesitated, and began to speak with difficulty, her eyes on the +ground. But by the time they were in the main Shanmoor path again, and +she was not so weakly dependent on his physical aid, her spirits too +returned. Pacing along with her hands behind her, she began by degrees +to throw into her accounts of her various visits and performances plenty +of her natural malice. + +And after a bit, as that strange storm of feeling which had assailed her +on the mountain-top abated something of its bewildering force, certain +old grievances began to raise very lively heads in her. The smart of +Lady Fauntleroy's ball was still there; she had not yet forgiven him all +those relations; and the teasing image of Lady Florence woke up in her. + +'It seems to me,' he said at last dryly, as he opened a gate for her not +far from Burwood, 'that you have been making yourself agreeable to a +vast number of people. In my new capacity of censor I should like to +warn you that there is nothing so bad for the character as universal +popularity.' + +'_I_ have not got a thousand and one important cousins!' she exclaimed, +her lip curling. 'If I want to please, I must take pains, else "nobody +minds me."' + +He looked at her attentively, his handsome face aglow with animation. + +'What can you mean by that?' he said slowly. + +But she was quite silent, her head well in air. + +'Cousins?' he repeated. 'Cousins? And clearly meant as a taunt at me! +Now when did you see my cousins? I grant that I possess a monstrous and +indefensible number. I have it. You think that at Lady Fauntleroy's ball +I devoted myself too much to my family, and too little to----' + +'Not at all!' cried Rose hastily, adding, with charming incoherence, +while she twisted a sprig of honeysuckle in her restless fingers, +'_Some_ cousins of course are pretty.' + +He paused an instant: then a light broke over his face, and his burst of +quiet laughter was infinitely pleasant to hear. Rose got redder and +redder. She realised dimly that she was hardly maintaining the spirit of +their contract, and that he was studying her with eyes inconveniently +bright and penetrating. + +'Shall I quote to you,' he said, 'a sentence of Sterne's? If it violate +our contract I must plead extenuating circumstances. Sterne is +admonishing a young friend as to his manners in society: "You are in +love," he says. "_Tant mieux._ But do not imagine that the fact bestows +on you a licence to behave like a bear towards all the rest of the +world. _Affection may surely conduct thee through an avenue of women to +her who possesses thy heart without tearing the flounces of any of their +petticoats_"--not even those of little cousins of seventeen! I say +this, you will observe, in the capacity you have assigned me. In another +capacity I venture to think I could justify myself still better.' + +'My guardian and director,' cried Rose, 'must not begin his functions by +misleading and sophistical quotations from the classics!' + +He did not answer for a moment. They were at the gate of Burwood, under +a thick screen of wild cherry trees. The gate was half open, and his +hand was on it. + +'And my pupil,' he said, bending to her, 'must not begin by challenging +the prisoner whose hands she has bound, or he will not answer for the +consequences!' + +His words were threatening, but his voice, his fine expressive face, +were infinitely sweet. By a kind of fascination she never afterwards +understood, Rose for answer startled him and herself. She bent her head; +she laid her lips on the hand which held the gate, and then she was +through it in an instant. He followed her in vain. He never overtook her +till at the drawing-room door she paused with amazing dignity. + +'Mamma,' she said, throwing it open, 'here is Mr. Flaxman. He is come +from Norway, and is on his way to Ullswater. I will go and speak to +Margaret about tea.' + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +After the little incident recorded at the end of the preceding chapter, +Hugh Flaxman may be forgiven if, as he walked home along the valley that +night towards the farmhouse where he had established himself, he +entertained a very comfortable scepticism as to the permanence of that +curious contract into which Rose had just forced him. However, he was +quite mistaken. Rose's maiden dignity avenged itself abundantly on Hugh +Flaxman for the injuries it had received at the hands of Langham. The +restraints, the anomalies, the hairsplittings of the situation delighted +her ingenuous youth. 'I am free--he is free. We will be friends for six +months. Possibly we may not suit one another at all. If we +do--_then_----' + +In the thrill of that _then_ lay, of course, the whole attraction of the +position. + +So that next morning Hugh Flaxman saw the comedy was to be scrupulously +kept up. It required a tolerably strong masculine certainty at the +bottom of him to enable him to resign himself once more to his part. But +he achieved it, and being himself a modern of the moderns, a lover of +half-shades and refinements of all sorts, he began very soon to enjoy +it, and to play it with an increasing cleverness and perfection. + +How Rose got through Agnes's cross-questioning on the matter history +sayeth not. Of one thing, however, a conscientious historian may be +sure, namely, that Agnes succeeded in knowing as much as she wanted to +know. Mrs. Leyburn was a little puzzled by the erratic lines of Mr. +Flaxman's journeys. It was, as she said, curious that a man should start +on a tour through the Lakes from Long Whindale. + +But she took everything naively as it came, and as she was told. Nothing +with her ever passed through any changing crucible of thought. It +required no planning to elude her. Her mind was like a stretch of wet +sand, on which all impressions are equally easy to make and equally +fugitive. He liked them all, she supposed, in spite of the comparative +scantiness of his later visits to Lerwick Gardens, or he would not have +come out of his way to see them. But as nobody suggested anything else +to her, her mind worked no further, and she was as easily beguiled after +his appearance as before it by the intricacies of some new knitting. + +Things of course might have been different if Mrs. Thornburgh had +interfered again; but, as we know, poor Catherine's sorrows had raised a +whole odd host of misgivings in the mind of the vicar's wife. She +prowled nervously round Mrs. Leyburn, filled with contempt for her +placidity; but she did not attack her. She spent herself, indeed, on +Rose and Agnes, but long practice had made them adepts in the art of +baffling her; and when Mr. Flaxman went to tea at the vicarage in their +company, in spite of an absorbing desire to get at the truth, which +caused her to forget a new cap, and let fall a plate of tea-cakes, she +was obliged to confess crossly to the vicar afterwards that 'no one +could tell what a man like that was after. She supposed his manners were +very aristocratic, but for her part she liked plain people.' + +On the last morning of Mr. Flaxman's stay in the valley he entered the +Burwood drive about eleven o'clock, and Rose came down the steps to meet +him. For a moment he flattered himself that her disturbed looks were due +to the nearness of their farewells. + +'There is something wrong,' he said, softly detaining her hand a +moment--so much, at least, was in his right. + +'Robert is ill. There has been an accident at Petites Dalles. He has +been in bed for a week. They hope to get home in a few days. Catherine +writes bravely, but she is evidently very low.' + +Hugh Flaxman's face fell. Certain letters he had received from Elsmere +in July had lain heavy on his mind ever since, so pitiful was the +half-conscious revelation in them of an incessant physical struggle. An +accident! Elsmere was in no state for accidents. What miserable +ill-luck! + +Rose read him Catherine's account. It appeared that on a certain stormy +day a swimmer had been observed in difficulties among the rocks skirting +the northern side of the Petites Dalles bay. The old _baigneur_ of the +place, owner of the still primitive _etablissement des bains_, without +stopping to strip, or even to take off his heavy boots, went out to the +man in danger with a plank. The man took the plank and was safe. Then to +the people watching, it became evident that the _baigneur_ himself was +in peril. He became unaccountably feeble in the water, and the cry rose +that he was sinking. Robert, who happened to be bathing near, ran off to +the spot, jumped in, and swam out. By this time the old man had drifted +some way. Robert succeeded, however, in bringing him in, and then, amid +an excited crowd, headed by the _baigneur's_ wailing family, they +carried the unconscious form on to the higher beach. Elsmere was certain +life was not extinct, and sent off for a doctor. Meanwhile no one seemed +to have any common sense, or any knowledge of how to proceed, but +himself. For two hours he stayed on the beach in his dripping +bathing-clothes, a cold wind blowing, trying every device known to him: +rubbing, hot bottles, artificial respiration. In vain. The man was too +old and too bloodless. Directly after the doctor arrived he breathed his +last, amid the wild and passionate grief of wife and children. + +Robert, with a cloak flung about him, still stayed to talk to the +doctor, to carry one of the _baigneur's_ sobbing grandchildren to its +mother in the village. Then, at last, Catherine got hold of him, and he +submitted to be taken home, shivering, and deeply depressed by the +failure of his efforts. A violent gastric and lung chill declared itself +almost immediately, and for three days he had been anxiously ill. +Catherine, miserable, distrusting the local doctor, and not knowing how +to get hold of a better one, had never left him night or day. 'I had not +the heart to write even to you,' she wrote to her mother. 'I could think +of nothing but trying one thing after another. Now he has been in bed +eight days, and is much better. He talks of getting up to-morrow, and +declares he must go home next week. I have tried to persuade him to stay +here another fortnight, but the thought of his work distresses him so +much that I hardly dare urge it. I cannot say how I dread the journey. +He is not fit for it in any way.' + +Rose folded up the letter, her face softened to a most womanly gravity. +Hugh Flaxman paused a moment outside the door, his hands on his sides, +considering. + +'I shall not go on to Scotland,' he said; 'Mrs. Elsmere must not be +left. I will go off there at once.' + +In Rose's soberly-sweet looks as he left her, Hugh Flaxman saw for an +instant, with the stirring of a joy as profound as it was delicate, not +the fanciful enchantress of the day before, but his wife that was to be. +And yet she held him to his bargain. All that his lips touched as he +said good-bye was the little bunch of yellow briar roses she gave him +from her belt. + +Thirty hours later he was descending the long hill from Sassetot to +Petites Dalles. It was the 1st of September. A chilly west wind blew up +the dust before him and stirred the parched leafage of the valley. He +knocked at the door, of which the woodwork was all peeled and blistered +by the sun. Catherine herself opened it. + +'This is kind--this is like yourself!' she said, after a first stare of +amazement, when he had explained himself. 'He is in there, much better.' + +Robert looked up, stupefied, as Hugh Flaxman entered. But he sprang up +with his old brightness. + +'Well, this _is_ friendship! What on earth brings you here, old fellow? +Why aren't you in the stubbles celebrating St. Partridge?' + +Hugh Flaxman said what he had to say very shortly, but so as to make +Robert's eyes gleam, and to bring his thin hand with a sort of caressing +touch upon Flaxman's shoulder. + +'I shan't try to thank you--Catherine can if she likes. How relieved she +will be about that bothering journey of ours! However, I am really ever +so much better. It was very sharp while it lasted; and the doctor no +great shakes. But there never was such a woman as my wife; she pulled me +through! And now then, sir, just kindly confess yourself a little more +plainly. What brought you and my sisters-in-law together? You need not +try and persuade _me_ that Long Whindale is the natural gate of the +Lakes, or the route intended by Heaven from London to Scotland, though I +have no doubt you tried that little fiction on them.' + +Hugh Flaxman laughed, and sat down very deliberately. + +'I am glad to see that illness has not robbed you of that perspicacity +for which you are so remarkable, Elsmere. Well, the day before yesterday +I asked your sister Rose to marry me. She----' + +'Go on, man,' cried Robert, exasperated by his pause. + +'I don't know how to put it,' said Flaxman calmly. 'For six months we +are to be rather more than friends, and a good deal less than _fiances_. +I am to be allowed to write to her. You may imagine how seductive it is +to one of the worst and laziest letter-writers in the three kingdoms +that his fortunes in love should be made to depend on his +correspondence. I may scold her _if_ she gives me occasion. And in six +months, as one says to a publisher, "the agreement will be open to +revision."' + +Robert stared. + +'And you are not engaged?' + +'Not as I understand it,' replied Flaxman. 'Decidedly not!' he added +with energy, remembering that very platonic farewell. + +Robert sat with his hands on his knees, ruminating. + +'A fantastic thing, the modern young woman! Still I think I can +understand. There may have been more than mere caprice in it.' + +His eye met his friend's significantly. + +'I suppose so,' said Flaxman quietly. Not even for Robert's benefit was +he going to reveal any details of that scene on High Fell 'Never mind, +old fellow, I am content. And, indeed, _faute de mieux_, I should be +content with anything that brought me nearer to her, were it but by the +thousandth of an inch.' + +Robert grasped his hand affectionately. + +'Catherine,' he called through the door, 'never mind the supper; let it +burn. Flaxman brings news.' + +Catherine listened to the story with amazement. Certainly her ways would +never have been as her sister's. + +'Are we supposed to know?' she asked, very naturally. + +'She never forbade me to tell,' said Flaxman smiling. 'I think, however, +if I were you, I should say nothing about it--yet. I told her it was +part of our bargain that _she_ should explain my letters to Mrs. +Leyburn. I gave her free leave to invent any fairy tale she pleased, but +it was to be _her_ invention, not mine. + +Neither Robert nor Catherine were very well pleased. But there was +something reassuring as well as comic in the stoicism with which Flaxman +took his position. And clearly the matter must be left to manage itself. + +Next morning the weather had improved. Robert, his hand on Flaxman's +arm, got down to the beach. Flaxman watched him critically, did not like +some of his symptoms, but thought on the whole he must be recovering at +the normal rate, considering how severe the attack had been. + +'What do you think of him?' Catherine asked him next day, with all her +soul in her eyes. They had left Robert established in a sunny nook, and +were strolling on along the sands. + +'I think you must get him home, call in a first-rate doctor, and keep +him quiet,' said Flaxman. 'He will be all right presently.' + +'How _can_ we keep him quiet?' said Catherine, with a momentary despair +in her fine pale face. 'All day long and all night long he is thinking +of his work. It is like something fiery burning the heart out of him.' + +Flaxman felt the truth of the remark during the four days of calm autumn +weather he spent with them before the return journey. Robert would talk +to him for hours, now on the sands, with the gray infinity of sea before +them, now pacing the bounds of their little room till fatigue made him +drop heavily into his long chair; and the burden of it all was the +religious future of the working-class. He described the scene in the +Club, and brought out the dreams swarming in his mind, presenting them +for Flaxman's criticism, and dealing with them himself, with that +startling mixture of acute common-sense and eloquent passion which had +always made him so effective as an initiator. Flaxman listened dubiously +at first, as he generally listened to Elsmere, and then was carried +away, not by the beliefs, but by the man. _He_ found his pleasure in +dallying with the magnificent _possibility_ of the Church; doubt with +him applied to all propositions, whether positive or negative; and he +had the dislike of the aristocrat and the cosmopolitan for the +provincialisms of religious dissent. Political dissent or social reform +was another matter. Since the Revolution, every generous child of the +century has been open to the fascination of political or social Utopias. +But religion! _What--what is truth?_ Why not let the old things alone? + +However, it was through the social passion, once so real in him, and +still living, in spite of disillusion and self-mockery, that Robert +caught him, had in fact been slowly gaining possession of him all these +months. + +'Well,' said Flaxman one day, 'suppose I grant you that Christianity of +the old sort shows strong signs of exhaustion, even in England, and in +spite of the Church expansion we hear so much about; and suppose I +believe with you that things will go badly without religion--what then? +Who can have a religion for the asking?' + +'But who can have it without? _Seek_, that you may find. Experiment; try +new combinations. If a thing is going that humanity can't do without, +and you and I believe it, what duty is more urgent for us than the +effort to replace it?' + +Flaxman shrugged his shoulders. + +'What will you gain? A new sect?' + +'Possibly. But what we _stand_ to gain is a new social bond,' was the +flashing answer--'a new compelling force in man and in society. Can you +deny that the world wants it? What are you economists and sociologists +of the new type always pining for? Why, for that diminution of the self +in man which is to enable the individual to see the _world's_ ends +clearly, and to care not only for his own but for his neighbour's +interest, which is to make the rich devote themselves to the poor, and +the poor bear with the rich. If man only _would_, he _could_, you say, +solve all the problems which oppress him. It is man's will which is +eternally defective, eternally inadequate. Well, the great religions of +the world are the stimulants by which the power at the root of things +has worked upon this sluggish instrument of human destiny. Without +religion you cannot make the will equal to its tasks. Our present +religion fails us; we must, we will have another!' + +He rose and began to pace along the sands, now gently glowing in the +warm September evening, Flaxman beside him. + +_A new religion!_ Of all words, the most tremendous! Flaxman pitifully +weighed against it the fraction of force fretting and surging in the +thin elastic frame beside him. He knew well, however--few better--that +the outburst was not a mere dream and emptiness. There was experience +behind it--a burning, driving experience of actual fact. + +Presently Robert said, with a change of tone, 'I must have that whole +block of warehouses, Flaxman.' + +'Must you?' said Flaxman, relieved by the drop from speculation to the +practical. 'Why?' + +'Look here!' And sitting down again on a sand-hill overgrown with wild +grasses and mats of sea-thistle, the poor pale reformer began to draw +out the details of his scheme on its material side. Three floors of +rooms brightly furnished, well lit and warmed; a large hall for the +Sunday lectures, concerts, entertainments, and story-telling; rooms for +the boys' club; two rooms for women and girls, reached by a separate +entrance; a library and reading-room open to both sexes, well stored +with books, and made beautiful by pictures; three or four smaller rooms +to serve as committee rooms and for the purposes of the Naturalist Club +which had been started in May on the Murewell plan; and, if possible, a +gymnasium. + +'_Money!_' he said, drawing up with a laugh in mid-career. 'There's the +rub, of course. But I shall manage it.' + +To judge from the past, Flaxman thought it extremely likely that he +would. He studied the cabalistic lines Elsmere's stick had made in the +sand for a minute or two; then he said dryly, 'I will take the first +expense: and draw on me afterwards up to five hundred a year, for the +first four years.' + +Robert turned upon him and grasped his hand. + +'I do not thank you,' he said quietly, after a moment's pause; 'the work +itself will do that.' + +Again they strolled on, talking, plunging into details, till Flaxman's +pulse beat as fast as Robert's; so full of infectious hope and energy +was the whole being of the man before him. + +'I can take in the women and girls now,' Robert said once. 'Catherine +has promised to superintend it all.' + +Then suddenly something struck the mobile mind, and he stood an instant +looking at his companion. It was the first time he had mentioned +Catherine's name in connection with the North R---- work. Flaxman could +not mistake the emotion, the unspoken thanks in those eyes. He turned +away, nervously knocking off the ashes of his cigar. But the two men +understood each other. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + + +Two days later they were in London again. Robert was a great deal +better, and beginning to kick against invalid restraints. All men have +their pet irrationalities. Elsmere's irrationality was an aversion to +doctors, from the point of view of his own ailments. He had an unbounded +admiration for them as a class, and would have nothing to say to them as +individuals that he could possibly help. Flaxman was sarcastic; +Catherine looked imploring in vain. He vowed that he was treating +himself with a skill any professional might envy, and went his way. And +for a time the stimulus of London and of his work seemed to act +favourably upon him. After his first welcome at the Club he came home +with bright eye and vigorous step, declaring that he was another man. + +Flaxman established himself in St. James's Place. Town was deserted; the +partridges at Greenlaws clamoured to be shot; the head-keeper wrote +letters which would have melted the heart of a stone. Flaxman replied +recklessly that any decent fellow in the neighbourhood was welcome to +shoot his birds--a reply which almost brought upon him the resignation +of the outraged keeper by return of post. Lady Charlotte wrote and +remonstrated with him for neglecting a landowner's duties, inquiring at +the same time what he meant to do with regard to 'that young lady.' To +which Flaxman replied calmly that he had just come back from the Lakes, +where he had done, not indeed all that he meant to do, but still +something. Miss Leyburn and he were not engaged, but he was on probation +for six months, and found London the best place for getting through it. + + 'So far,' he said, 'I am getting on well, and developing an amount + of energy especially in the matter of correspondence, which alone + ought to commend the arrangement to the relations of an idle man. + But we must be left "to dream our dream unto ourselves alone." One + word from anybody belonging to me to anybody belonging to her on + the subject, and---- But threats are puerile. _For the present_, + dear aunt, I am your devoted nephew, + + HUGH FLAXMAN.' + +'_On probation!_' + +Flaxman chuckled as he sent off the letter. + +He stayed because he was too restless to be anywhere else, and because +he loved the Elsmeres for Rose's sake and his own. He thought moreover +that a cool-headed friend with an eye for something else in the world +than religious reform might be useful just then to Elsmere, and he was +determined at the same time to see what the reformer meant to be at. + +In the first place, Robert's attention was directed to getting +possession of the whole block of buildings, in which the existing school +and lecture-rooms took up only the lowest floor. This was a matter of +some difficulty, for the floors above were employed in warehousing goods +belonging to various minor import trades, and were held on tenures of +different lengths. However, by dint of some money and much skill, the +requisite clearances were effected during September and part of October. +By the end of that month all but the top floor, the tenant of which +refused to be dislodged, fell into Elsmere's hands. + +Meanwhile, at a meeting held every Sunday after lecture--a meeting +composed mainly of artisans of the district, but including also Robert's +helpers from the West, and a small sprinkling of persons interested in +the man and his work from all parts--the details of 'The New +Brotherhood of Christ' were being hammered out. Catherine was generally +present, sitting a little apart, with a look which Flaxman, who now knew +her well, was always trying to decipher afresh--a sort of sweet +aloofness, as though the spirit behind it saw, down the vistas of the +future, ends and solutions which gave it courage to endure the present. +Murray Edwardes too was always there. It often struck Flaxman afterwards +that in Robert's attitude towards Edwardes at this time, in his constant +desire to bring him forward, to associate him with himself as much as +possible in the government and formation of the infant society, there +was a half-conscious prescience of a truth that as yet none knew, not +even the tender wife, the watchful friend. + +The meetings were of extraordinary interest. The men, the great majority +of whom had been disciplined and moulded for months by contact with +Elsmere's teaching and Elsmere's thought, showed a responsiveness, a +receptivity, even a power of initiation which often struck Flaxman with +wonder. Were these the men he had seen in the Club-hall on the night of +Robert's address--sour, stolid, brutalised, hostile to all things in +heaven and earth? + +'And we go on prating that the age of saints is over, the role of the +individual lessening day by day! Fool! go and _be_ a saint, go and give +yourself to ideas; go and _live_ the life hid with Christ in God, and +see,'--so would run the quick comment of the observer. + +But incessant as was the reciprocity, the interchange and play of +feeling between Robert and the wide following growing up around him, it +was plain to Flaxman that although he never moved a step without +carrying his world with him, he was never at the mercy of his world. +Nothing was ever really left to chance. Through all these strange +debates, which began rawly and clumsily enough, and grew every week more +and more absorbing to all concerned, Flaxman was convinced that hardly +any rule or formula of the new society was ultimately adopted which had +not been for long in Robert's mind--thought out and brought into final +shape, perhaps, on the Petites Dalles sands. It was an unobtrusive art, +his art of government, but a most effective one. + +At any moment, as Flaxman often felt, at any rate in the early meetings, +the discussions as to the religious practices which were to bind +together the new association might have passed the line, and become +puerile or grotesque. At any moment the jarring characters and ambitions +of the men Elsmere had to deal with might have dispersed that delicate +atmosphere of moral sympathy and passion in which the whole new birth +seemed to have been conceived, and upon the maintenance of which its +fruition and development depended. But as soon as Elsmere appeared, +difficulties vanished, enthusiasm sprang up again. The rules of the new +society came simply and naturally into being, steeped and haloed, as it +were, from the beginning, in the passion and genius of one great heart. +The fastidious critical instinct in Flaxman was silenced no less than +the sour, half-educated analysis of such a man as Lestrange. + +In the same way all personal jars seemed to melt away beside him. There +were some painful things connected with the new departure. Wardlaw, for +instance, a conscientious Comtist, refusing stoutly to admit anything +more than 'an unknowable reality behind phenomena,' was distressed and +affronted by the strongly religious bent Elsmere was giving to the work +he had begun. Lestrange, who was a man of great though raw ability, who +almost always spoke at the meetings, and whom Robert was bent on +attaching to the society, had times when the things he was half inclined +to worship one day he was much more inclined to burn the next in the +sight of all men, and when the smallest failure of temper on Robert's +part might have entailed a disagreeable scene, and the possible +formation of a harassing left wing. + +But Robert's manner to Wardlaw was that of a grateful younger brother. +It was clear that the Comtist could not formally join the Brotherhood. +But all the share and influence that could be secured him in the +practical working of it was secured him. And what was more, Robert +succeeded in infusing his own delicacy, his own compunctions on the +subject, into the men and youths who had profited in the past by +Wardlaw's rough self-devotion. So that if, through much that went on +now, he could only be a spectator, at least he was not allowed to feel +himself an alien or forgotten. + +As to Lestrange, against a man who was as ready to laugh as to preach, +and into whose ardent soul nature had infused a saving sense of the +whimsical in life and character, cynicism and vanity seemed to have no +case. Robert's quick temper had been wonderfully disciplined by life +since his Oxford days. He had now very little of that stiff-neckedness, +so fatal to the average reformer, which makes a man insist on all or +nothing from his followers. He took what each man had to give. Nay, he +made it almost seem as though the grudging support of Lestrange, or the +critical half-patronising approval of the young barrister from the West +who came down to listen to him, and made a favour of teaching in his +night-school, were as precious to him as was the whole-hearted, the +self-abandoning veneration, which the majority of those about him had +begun to show towards the man in whom, as Charles Richards said, they +had 'seen God.' + +At last by the middle of November the whole great building, with the +exception of the top floor, was cleared and ready for use. Robert felt +the same joy in it, in its clean paint, the half-filled shelves in the +library, the pictures standing against the walls ready to be hung, the +rolls of bright-coloured matting ready to be laid down, as he had felt +in the Murewell Institute. He and Flaxman, helped by a voluntary army of +men, worked at it from morning till night. Only Catherine could ever +persuade him to remember that he was not yet physically himself. + +Then came the day when the building was formally opened, when the gilt +letters over the door, 'The New Brotherhood of Christ,' shone out into +the dingy street, and when the first enrolment of names in the book of +the Brotherhood took place. + +For two hours a continuous stream of human beings surrounded the little +table beside which Elsmere stood, inscribing their names, and receiving +from him the silver badge, bearing the head of Christ, which was to be +the outward and conspicuous sign of membership. Men came of all sorts: +the intelligent well-paid artisan, the pallid clerk or small accountant, +stalwart warehousemen, huge carters and draymen, the boy attached to +each by the laws of the profession often straggling lumpishly behind his +master. Women were there: wives who came because their lords came, or +because Mr. Elsmere had been 'that good' to them that anything they +could do to oblige him 'they would, and welcome'; prim pupil-teachers, +holding themselves with straight superior shoulders; children, who came +trooping in, grinned up into Robert's face and retreated again with red +cheeks, the silver badge tight clasped in hands which not even much +scrubbing could make passable. + +Flaxman stood and watched it from the side. It was an extraordinary +scene: the crowd, the slight figure on the platform, the two great +inscriptions, which represented the only 'articles' of the new faith, +gleaming from the freshly coloured walls-- + + _'In Thee, O Eternal, have I put my trust;'_ + + _'This do in remembrance of Me;'_ + +--the recesses on either side of the hall lined with white marble, and +destined, the one to hold the names of the living members of the +Brotherhood, the other to commemorate those who had passed away (empty +this last save for the one poor name of 'Charles Richards'); the copies +of Giotto's Paduan Virtues--faith, fortitude, charity, and the +like--which broke the long wall at intervals. The cynic in the onlooker +tried to assert itself against the feeling with which the air seemed +overcharged. In vain. + +'Whatever comes of it,' Flaxman said to himself with strong involuntary +conviction, 'whether he fails or no, the spirit that is moving here is +the same spirit that spread the Church, the spirit that sent out +Benedictine and Franciscan into the world, that fired the children of +Luther, or Calvin, or George Fox; the spirit of devotion, through a man, +to an idea; through one much-loved, much-trusted soul to some eternal +verity, newly caught, newly conceived, behind it. There is no +approaching the idea for the masses except through the human life; +there is no lasting power for the man except as the slave of the idea!' + +A week later he wrote to his aunt as follows. He could not write to her +of Rose, he did not care to write of himself, and he knew that Elsmere's +club address had left a mark even on her restless and overcrowded mind. +Moreover, he himself was absorbed. + +'We are in the full stream of religion-making. I watch it with a +fascination you at a distance cannot possibly understand, even when my +judgment demurs, and my intelligence protests that the thing cannot live +without Elsmere, and that Elsmere's life is a frail one. After the +ceremony of enrolment which I described to you yesterday the Council of +the New Brotherhood was chosen by popular election, and Elsmere gave an +address. Two-thirds of the council, I should think, are working-men, the +rest of the upper class; Elsmere, of course, president. + +'Since then the first religious service under the new constitution has +been held. The service is extremely simple, and the basis of the whole +is "new bottles for the new wine." The opening prayer is recited by +everybody present standing. It is rather an act of adoration and faith +than a prayer, properly so called. It represents, in fact, the placing +of the soul in the presence of God. The mortal turns to the eternal; the +ignorant and imperfect look away from themselves to the knowledge and +perfection of the All-Holy. It is Elsmere's drawing up, I imagine--at +any rate it is essentially modern, expressing the modern spirit, +answering to modern need, as I imagine the first Christian prayers +expressed the spirit and answered to the need of an earlier day. + +'Then follows some passage from the life of Christ. Elsmere reads it and +expounds it, in the first place, as a lecturer might expound a passage +of Tacitus, historically and critically. His explanation of miracle, his +efforts to make his audience realise the germs of miraculous belief +which each man carries with him in the constitution and inherited +furniture of his mind, are some of the most ingenious--perhaps the most +convincing--I have ever heard. My heart and my head have never been very +much at one, as you know, on this matter of the marvellous element in +religion. + +'But then when the critic has done, the poet and the believer begins. +Whether he has got hold of the true Christ is another matter; but that +the Christ he preaches moves the human heart as much as--and in the case +of the London artisan, more than--the current orthodox presentation of +him, I begin to have ocular demonstration. + +'I was present, for instance, at his children's Sunday class the other +day. He had brought them up to the story of the Crucifixion, reading +from the Revised Version, and amplifying wherever the sense required it. +Suddenly a little girl laid her head on the desk before her, and with +choking sobs implored him not to go on. The whole class seemed ready to +do the same. The pure human pity of the story--the contrast between the +innocence and the pain of the sufferer--seemed to be more than they +could bear. And there was no comforting sense of a jugglery by which the +suffering was not real after all, and the sufferer not man but God. + +'He took one of them upon his knee and tried to console them. But there +is something piercingly penetrating and austere even in the consolations +of this new faith. He did but remind the children of the burden of +gratitude laid upon them. "Would you let him suffer so much in vain? His +suffering has made you and me happier and better to-day, at this moment, +than we could have been without Jesus. You will understand how, and why, +more clearly when you grow up. Let us in return keep him in our hearts +always, and obey his words! It is all you can do for his sake, just as +all you could do for a mother who died would be to follow her wishes and +sacredly keep her memory." + +'That was about the gist of it. It was a strange little scene, +wonderfully suggestive and pathetic. + +'But a few more words about the Sunday service. After the address came a +hymn. There are only seven hymns in the little service book, gathered +out of the finest we have. It is supposed that in a short time they will +become so familiar to the members of the Brotherhood that they will be +sung readily by heart. The singing of them in the public service +alternates with an equal number of psalms. And both psalms and hymns are +meant to be recited or sung constantly in the homes of the members, and +to become part of the everyday life of the Brotherhood. They have been +most carefully chosen, and a sort of ritual importance has been attached +to them from the beginning. Each day in the week has its particular hymn +or psalm. + +'Then the whole wound up with another short prayer, also repeated +standing, a commendation of the individual, the Brotherhood, the nation, +the world, to God. The phrases of it are terse and grand. One can see at +once that it has laid hold of the popular sense, the popular memory. The +Lord's Prayer followed. Then, after a silent pause of "recollection," +Elsmere dismissed them. + +'"_Go in peace, in the love of God, and in the memory of His servant, +Jesus._" + +'I looked carefully at the men as they were tramping out. Some of them +were among the Secularist speakers you and I heard at the club in April. +In my wonder, I thought of a saying of Vinet's: "_C'est pour la religion +que le peuple a le plus de talent; c'est en religion qu'il montre le +plus d'esprit._"' + +In a later letter he wrote-- + +'I have not yet described to you what is perhaps the most +characteristic, the most binding practice of the New Brotherhood. It is +that which has raised most angry comment, cries of "profanity," "wanton +insult," and what not. I came upon it yesterday in an interesting way. I +was working with Elsmere at the arrangement of the library, which is now +becoming a most fascinating place, under the management of a librarian +chosen from the neighbourhood, when he asked me to go and take a message +to a carpenter who has been giving us voluntary help in the evenings +after his day's work. He thought that as it was the dinner hour, and the +man worked in the dock close by, I might find him at home. I went off to +the model lodging-house where I was told to look for him, mounted the +common stairs, and knocked at his door. Nobody seemed to hear me, and as +the door was ajar I pushed it open. + +'Inside was a curious sight. + +'The table was spread with the midday meal. Round the table stood four +children, the eldest about fourteen, and the youngest six or seven. At +one end of it stood the carpenter himself in his working apron, a brawny +Saxon, bowed a little by his trade. Before him was a plate of bread, and +his horny hands were resting on it. The street was noisy; they had not +heard my knock; and as I pushed open the door there was an old coat +hanging over the corner of it which concealed me. + +'Something in the attitudes of all concerned reminded me, kept me where +I was, silent. + +'The father lifted his right hand. + +'"The Master said, '_This do in remembrance of Me!_'" + +'The children stooped for a moment in silence, then the youngest said +slowly, in a little softened cockney voice that touched me +extraordinarily,-- + +'"_Jesus, we remember Thee always!_" + +'It was the appointed response. As she spoke I recollected the child +perfectly at Elsmere's class. I also remembered that she had no mother; +that her mother had died of cancer in June, visited and comforted to the +end by Elsmere and his wife. + +'Well, the great question of course remains--is there a sufficient +strength of _feeling_ and _conviction_ behind these things? If so, after +all, everything was new once, and Christianity was but modified +Judaism.' + + * * * * * + + 'December 22. + +'I believe I shall soon be as deep in this matter as Elsmere. In Elgood +Street great preparations are going on for Christmas. But it will be a +new sort of Christmas. We shall hear very little, it seems, of angels +and shepherds, and a great deal of the humble childhood of a little +Jewish boy whose genius grown to maturity transformed the Western world. +To see Elsmere, with his boys and girls about him, trying to make them +feel themselves the heirs and fellows of the Nazarene child, to make +them understand something of the lessons that child must have learnt, +the sights he must have seen, and the thoughts that must have come to +him, is a spectacle of which I will not miss more than I can help. Don't +imagine, however, that I am converted exactly!--but only that I am more +interested and stimulated than I have been for years. And don't expect +me for Christmas. I shall stay here.' + + * * * * * + + 'New Year's Day. + +'I am writing from the library of the New Brotherhood. The amount of +activity, social, educational, religious, of which this great building +promises to be the centre is already astonishing. Everything, of course +including the constitution of the infant society, is as yet purely +tentative and experimental. But for a scheme so young, things are +falling into working order with wonderful rapidity. Each department is +worked by committees under the central council. Elsmere, of course, is +_ex-officio_ chairman of a large proportion; Wardlaw, Mackay, I, and a +few other fellows "run" the rest for the present. But each committee +contains working-men; and it is the object of everybody concerned to +make the workman element more and more real and efficient. What with the +"tax" on the members which was fixed by a general meeting, and the +contributions from outside, the society already commands a fair income. +But Elsmere is anxious not to attempt too much at once, and will go +slowly and train his workers. + +'Music, it seems, is to be a great feature in the future. I have my own +projects as to this part of the business, which, however, I forbid you +to guess at. + +'By the rules of the Brotherhood, every member is bound to some work in +connection with it during the year, but little or much, as he or she is +able. And every meeting, every undertaking of whatever kind, opens with +the special "word" or formula of the society, "This do in remembrance of +Me."' + + * * * * * + + 'January 6. + +'Besides the Sunday lectures, Elsmere is pegging away on Saturday +evenings at "The History of the Moral Life in Man." It is a remarkable +course, and very largely attended by people of all sorts. He tries to +make it an exposition of the leading principles of the new movement, of +"that continuous and only revelation of God in life and nature," which +is in reality the basis of his whole thought. By the way, the letters +that are pouring in upon him from all parts are extraordinary. They show +an amount and degree of interest in ideas of the kind which are +surprising to a Laodicean like me. But he is not surprised--says he +always expected it--and that there are thousands who only want a +rallying-point. + +'His personal effect, the love that is felt for him, the passion and +energy of the nature--never has our generation seen anything to equal +it. As you perceive, I am reduced to taking it all seriously, and don't +know what to make of him or myself. + +'_She_, poor soul! is now always with him, comes down with him day after +day, and works away. She no more believes in his _ideas_, I think, than +she ever did; but all her antagonism is gone. In the midst of the stir +about him her face often haunts me. It has changed lately; she is no +longer a young woman, but so refined, so spiritual! + +'But he is ailing and fragile. _There_ is the one cloud on a scene that +fills me with increasing wonder and reverence.' + + + + +CHAPTER L + + +One cold Sunday afternoon in January, Flaxman, descending the steps of +the New Brotherhood, was overtaken by a young Dr. Edmondson, an able +young physician, just set up for himself as a consultant, who had only +lately attached himself to Elsmere, and was now helping him with +eagerness to organise a dispensary. Young Edmondson and Flaxman +exchanged a few words on Elsmere's lecture, and then the doctor said +abruptly,-- + +'I don't like his looks nor his voice. How long has he been hoarse like +that?' + +'More or less for the last month. He is very much worried by it himself, +and talks of clergyman's throat. He had a touch of it, it appears, once +in the country.' + +'Clergyman's throat?' Edmondson shook his head dubiously. 'It may be. I +wish he would let me overhaul him.' + +'I wish he would!' said Flaxman devoutly. 'I will see what I can do. I +will get hold of Mrs. Elsmere.' + +Meanwhile Robert and Catherine had driven home together. As they entered +the study she caught his hands, a suppressed and exquisite passion +gleaming in her face. + +'You did not explain Him! You never will!' + +He stood, held by her, his gaze meeting hers. Then in an instant his +face changed, blanched before her--he seemed to gasp for breath--she was +only just able to save him from falling. It was apparently another swoon +of exhaustion. As she knelt beside him on the floor, having done for him +all she could, watching his return to consciousness, Catherine's look +would have terrified any of those who loved her. There are some natures +which are never blind, never taken blissfully unawares, and which taste +calamity and grief to the very dregs. + +'Robert, to-morrow you _will_ see a doctor?' she implored him when at +last he was safely in bed--white, but smiling. + +He nodded. + +'Send for Edmondson. What I mind most is this hoarseness,' he said, in a +voice that was little more than a tremulous whisper. + +Catherine hardly closed her eyes all night. The room, the house, seemed +to her stifling, oppressive, like a grave. And, by ill luck, with the +morning came a long expected letter, not indeed from the squire, but +about the squire. Robert had been for some time expecting a summons to +Murewell. The squire had written to him last in October from Clarens, on +the Lake of Geneva. Since then weeks had passed without bringing Elsmere +any news of him at all. Meanwhile the growth of the New Brotherhood had +absorbed its founder, so that the inquiries which should have been sent +to Murewell had been postponed. The letter which reached him now was +from old Meyrick. 'The squire has had another bad attack, and is _much_ +weaker. But his mind is clear again, and he greatly desires to see you. +If you can, come to-morrow.' + +'_His mind is clear again!_' Horrified by the words and by the images +they called up, remorseful also for his own long silence, Robert sprang +up from bed, where the letter had been brought to him, and presently +appeared downstairs, where Catherine, believing him safely captive for +the morning, was going through some household business. + +'I _must_ go, I _must_ go!' he said as he handed her the letter. +'Meyrick puts it cautiously, but it may be the end!' + +Catherine looked at him in despair. + +'Robert, you are like a ghost yourself, and I have sent for Dr. +Edmondson.' + +'Put him off till the day after to-morrow. Dear little wife, listen; my +voice is ever so much better. Murewell air will do me good.' She turned +away to hide the tears in her eyes. Then she tried fresh persuasions, +but it was useless. His look was glowing and restless. She saw he felt +it a call impossible to disobey. A telegram was sent to Edmondson, and +Robert drove off to Waterloo. + +Out of the fog of London it was a mild, sunny winter's day. Robert +breathed more freely with every mile. His eyes took note of every +landmark in the familiar journey with a thirsty eagerness. It was a year +and a half since he had travelled it. He forgot his weakness, the +exhausting pressure and publicity of his new work. The past possessed +him, thrust out the present. Surely he had been up to London for the day +and was going back to Catherine! + +At the station he hailed an old friend among the cabmen. + +'Take me to the corner of the Murewell lane, Tom. Then you may drive on +my bag to the Hall, and I shall walk over the common.' + +The man urged on his tottering old steed with a will. In the streets of +the little town Robert saw several acquaintances who stopped and stared +at the apparition. Were the houses, the people real, or was it all a +hallucination--his flight and his return, so unthought of yesterday, so +easy and swift to-day? + +By the time they were out on the wild ground between the market town and +Murewell, Robert's spirits were as buoyant as thistle-down. He and the +driver kept up an incessant gossip over the neighbourhood, and he +jumped down from the carriage as the man stopped with the alacrity of a +boy. + +'Go on, Tom; see if I am not there as soon as you.' + +'Looks most uncommon bad,' the man muttered to himself as his horse +shambled off. 'Seems as spry as a lark all the same.' + +Why, the gorse was out, positively out in January! and the thrushes were +singing as though it were March. Robert stopped opposite a bush covered +with timid half-opened blooms, and thought he had seen nothing so +beautiful since he had last trodden that road in spring. Presently he +was in the same cart-track he had crossed on the night of his confession +to Catherine; he lingered beside the same solitary fir on the brink of +the ridge. A winter world lay before him; soft brown woodland, or +reddish heath and fern, struck sideways by the sun, clothing the earth's +bareness everywhere--curling mists--blue points of distant hill--a gray +luminous depth of sky. + +The eyes were moist, the lips moved. There in the place of his old +anguish he stood and blessed God!--not for any personal happiness, but +simply for that communication of Himself which may make every hour of +common living a revelation. + +Twenty minutes later, leaving the park gate to his left, he hurried up +the lane leading to the vicarage. One look! he might not be able to +leave the squire later. The gate of the wood-path was ajar. Surely just +inside it he should find Catherine in her garden hat, the white-frocked +child dragging behind her! And there was the square stone house, the +brown cornfield, the red-brown woods! Why, what had the man been doing +with the study? White blinds showed it was a bedroom now. Vandal! +Besides, how could the boys have free access except to that ground-floor +room? And all that pretty stretch of grass under the acacia had been cut +up into stiff little lozenge-shaped beds, filled, he supposed, in summer +with the properest geraniums. He should never dare to tell that to +Catherine. + +He stood and watched the little significant signs of change in this +realm, which had been once his own, with a dissatisfied mouth, his +undermind filled the while with tempestuous yearning and affection. In +that upper room he had lain through that agonised night of crisis; the +dawn-twitterings of the summer birds seemed to be still in his ears. And +there, in the distance, was the blue wreath of smoke hanging over Mile +End. Ah! the new cottages must be warm this winter. The children did not +lie in the wet any longer--thank God! Was there time just to run down to +Irwin's cottage, to have a look at the Institute? + +He had been standing on the farther side of the road from the rectory +that he might not seem to be spying out the land and his successor's +ways too closely. Suddenly he found himself clinging to a gate near him +that led into a field. He was shaken by a horrible struggle for breath. +The self seemed to be foundering in a stifling sea, and fought like a +drowning thing. When the moment passed, he looked round him bewildered, +drawing his hand across his eyes. The world had grown black--the sun +seemed to be scarcely shining. Were those the sounds of children's +voices on the hill, the rumbling of a cart--or was it all sight and +sound alike, mirage and delirium? + +With difficulty, leaning on his stick as though he were a man of +seventy, he groped his way back to the Park. There he sank down, still +gasping, among the roots of one of the great cedars near the gate. After +a while the attack passed off and he found himself able to walk on. But +the joy, the leaping pulse of half an hour ago, were gone from his +veins. Was that the river--the house? He looked at them with dull eyes. +All the light was lowered. A veil seemed to lie between him and the +familiar things. + +However, by the time he reached the door of the Hall will and nature had +reasserted themselves, and he knew where he was and what he had to do. + +Vincent flung the door open with his old lordly air. + +'Why, sir! _Mr._ Elsmere!' + +The butler's voice began on a note of joyful surprise, sliding at once +into one of alarm. He stood and stared at this ghost of the old rector. + +Elsmere grasped his hand, and asked him to take him into the dining-room +and give him some wine before announcing him. Vincent ministered to him +with a long face, pressing all the alcoholic resources of the Hall upon +him in turn. The squire was much better, he declared, and had been +carried down to the library. + +'But, lor, sir, there ain't much to be said for your looks +neither--seems as if London didn't suit you, sir.' + +Elsmere explained feebly that he had been suffering from his throat, and +had overtired himself by walking over the common. Then, recognising from +a distorted vision of himself in a Venetian mirror hanging by that +something of his natural colour had returned to him, he rose and bade +Vincent announce him. + +'And Mrs. Darcy?' he asked, as they stepped out into the hall again. + +'Oh, Mrs. Darcy, sir, she's very well,' said the man, but, as it seemed +to Robert, with something of an embarrassed air. + +He followed Vincent down the long passage--haunted by old memories, by +the old sickening sense of mental anguish--to the curtained door. +Vincent ushered him in. There was a stir of feet, and a voice, but at +first he saw nothing. The room was very much darkened. Then Meyrick +emerged into distinctness. + +'Squire, here _is_ Mr. Elsmere! Well, Mr. Elsmere, sir, I'm sure we're +very much obliged to you for meeting the squire's wishes so promptly. +You'll find him poorly, Mr. Elsmere, but mending--oh yes, mending, +sir--no doubt of it.' + +Elsmere began to perceive a figure by the fire. A bony hand was advanced +to him out of the gloom. + +'That'll do, Meyrick. You won't be wanted till the evening.' + +The imperious note in the voice struck Robert with a sudden sense of +relief. After all, the squire was still capable of trampling on Meyrick. + +In another minute the door had closed on the old doctor, and the two men +were alone. Robert was beginning to get used to the dim light. Out of it +the squire's face gleamed almost as whitely as the tortured marble of +the Medusa just above their heads. + +'It's some inflammation in the eyes,' the squire explained briefly, +'that's made Meyrick set up all this d--d business of blinds and +shutters. I don't mean to stand it much longer. The eyes are better, and +I prefer to see my way out of the world, if possible.' + +'But you are recovering?' Robert said, laying his hand affectionately on +the old man's knee. + +'I have added to my knowledge,' said the squire drily. 'Like Heine, I am +qualified to give lectures in heaven on the ignorance of doctors on +earth. And I am not in bed, which I was last week. For Heaven's sake +don't ask questions. If there is a loathsome subject on earth it is the +subject of the human body. Well, I suppose my message to you dragged you +away from a thousand things you had rather be doing. What are you so +hoarse for? Neglecting yourself as usual, for the sake of "the people," +who wouldn't even subscribe to bury you? Have you been working up the +Apocrypha as I recommended you last time we met?' + +Robert smiled. + +'For the last four months, Squire, I have been doing two things with +neither of which had you much sympathy in old days--holiday-making and +"slumming."' + +'Oh, I remember,' interrupted the squire hastily. 'I was low last week, +and read the Church papers by way of a counter-irritant. You have been +starting a new religion, I see. A new religion! _Humph!_' + +The great head fell forward, and through the dusk Robert caught the +sarcastic gleam of the eyes. + +'You are hardly the man to deny,' he said, undisturbed, 'that the old +ones _laissent a desirer_.' + +'Because there are old abuses, is that any reason why you should go and +set up a brand-new one--an ugly anachronism besides,' retorted the +squire. 'However, you and I have no common ground--never had. I say +_know_, you say _feel_. Where is the difference, after all, between you +and any charlatan of the lot? Well, how is Madame de Netteville?' + +'I have not seen her for six months,' Robert replied, with equal +abruptness. + +The squire laughed a little under his breath. + +'What did you think of her?' + +'Very much what you told me to think--intellectually,' replied Robert, +facing him, but flushing with the readiness of physical delicacy. + +'Well, I certainly never told you to think anything--_morally_,' said +the squire. 'The word moral has no relation to her. Whom did you see +there?' + +The catechism was naturally most distasteful to its object, but Elsmere +went through with it, the squire watching him for a while with an +expression which had a spark of malice in it. It is not unlikely that +some gossip of the Lady Aubrey sort had reached him. Elsmere had always +seemed to him oppressively good. The idea that Madame de Netteville had +tried her arts upon him was not without its piquancy. + +But while Robert was answering a question he was aware of a subtle +change in the squire's attitude--a relaxation of his own sense of +tension. After a minute he bent forward, peering through the darkness. +The squire's head had fallen back, his mouth was slightly open, and the +breath came lightly, quiveringly through. The cynic of a moment ago had +dropped suddenly into a sleep of more than childish weakness and +defencelessness. + +Robert remained bending forward, gazing at the man who had once meant so +much to him. + +Strange white face, sunk in the great chair! Behind it glimmered the +Donatello figure, and the divine Hermes, a glorious shape in the dusk, +looking scorn on human decrepitude. All round spread the dim walls of +books. The life they had nourished was dropping into the abyss out of +ken--they remained. Sixty years of effort and slavery to end so--a river +lost in the sands! + +Old Meyrick stole in again, and stood looking at the sleeping squire. + +'A bad sign! a bad sign!' he said, and shook his head mournfully. + +After he had made an effort to take some food which Vincent pressed upon +him, Robert, conscious of a stronger physical _malaise_ than had ever +yet tormented him, was crossing the hall again, when he suddenly saw +Mrs. Darcy at the door of a room which opened into the hall. He went up +to her with a warm greeting. + +'Are you going in to the squire? Let us go together.' + +She looked at him with no surprise, as though she had seen him the day +before, and as he spoke she retreated a step into the room behind her, a +curious film, so it seemed to him, darkening her small gray eyes. + +'The squire is not here. He is gone away. Have you seen my white mice? +Oh, they are such darlings! Only, one of them is ill, and they won't let +me have the doctor.' + +Her voice sank into the most pitiful plaintiveness. She stood in the +middle of the room, pointing with an elfish finger to a large cage of +white mice which stood in the window. The room seemed full besides of +other creatures. Robert stood rooted, looking at the tiny withered +figure in the black dress, its snowy hair and diminutive face swathed in +lace, with a perplexity into which there slipped an involuntary shiver. +Suddenly he became aware of a woman by the fire, a decent, +strong-looking body in gray, who rose as his look turned to her. Their +eyes met; her expression and the little jerk of her head towards Mrs. +Darcy, who was now standing by the cage coaxing the mice with the +weirdest gestures, were enough. Robert turned, and went out sick at +heart. The careful exquisite beauty of the great hall struck him as +something mocking and anti-human. + +No one else in the house said a word to him of Mrs. Darcy. In the +evening the squire talked much at intervals, but in another key. He +insisted on a certain amount of light, and, leaning on Robert's arm, +went feebly round the bookshelves. He took out one of the volumes of the +Fathers that Newman had given him. + +'When I think of the hours I wasted over this barbarous rubbish,' he +said, his blanched fingers turning the leaves vindictively, 'and of the +other hours I maundered away in services and self-examination! Thank +Heaven, however, the germ of revolt and sanity was always there. And +when once I got to it, I learnt my lesson pretty quick.' + +Robert paused, his kind inquiring eyes looking down on the shrunken +squire. + +'Oh, not one _you_ have any chance of learning, my good friend,' said +the other aggressively. 'And after all it's simple. _Go to your grave +with your eyes open_--that's all. But men don't learn it, somehow. +Newman was incapable--so are you. All the religions are nothing but so +many vulgar anaesthetics, which only the few have courage to refuse.' + +'Do you want me to contradict you?' said Robert, smiling; 'I am quite +ready.' + +The squire took no notice. Presently, when he was in his chair again, he +said abruptly, pointing to a mahogany bureau in the window, 'The book is +all there--both parts, first and second. Publish it if you please. If +not, throw it into the fire. Both are equally indifferent to me. It has +done its work; it has helped me through half a century of living.' + +'It shall be to me a sacred trust,' said Elsmere with emotion. 'Of +course if you don't publish it, I shall publish it.' + +'As you please. Well, then, if you have nothing more rational to tell me +about, tell me of this ridiculous Brotherhood of yours.' + +Robert, so adjured, began to talk, but with difficulty. The words would +not flow, and it was almost a relief when in the middle that strange +creeping sleep overtook the squire again. + +Meyrick, who was staying in the house, and who had been coming in and +out through the evening, eyeing Elsmere, now that there was more light +on the scene, with almost as much anxiety and misgiving as the squire, +was summoned. The squire was put into his carrying-chair. Vincent and a +male attendant appeared, and he was borne to his room, Meyrick +peremptorily refusing to allow Robert to lend so much as a finger to the +performance. They took him up the library stairs, through the empty +book-rooms and that dreary room which had been his father's, and so into +his own. By the time they set him down he was quite awake and conscious +again. + +'It can't be said that I follow my own precepts,' he said to Robert +grimly as they put him down. 'Not much of the open eye about this. I +shall sleep myself into the unknown as sweetly as any saint in the +calendar.' + +Robert was going when the squire called him back. + +'You'll stay to-morrow, Elsmere?' + +'Of course, if you wish it.' + +The wrinkled eyes fixed him intently. + +'Why did you ever go?' + +'As I told you before, Squire, because there was nothing else for an +honest man to do.' + +The squire turned round with a frown. + +'What the deuce are you dawdling about, Benson? Give me my stick and get +me out of this.' + +By midnight all was still in the vast pile of Murewell. Outside, the +night was slightly frosty. A clear moon shone over the sloping reaches +of the park; the trees shone silverly in the cold light, their black +shadows cast along the grass. Robert found himself quartered in the +Stuart room, where James II. had slept, and where the tartan hangings of +the ponderous carved bed, and the rose and thistle reliefs of the walls +and ceilings, untouched for two hundred years, bore witness to the loyal +preparations made by some bygone Wendover. He was mortally tired, but by +way of distracting his thoughts a little from the squire, and that other +tragedy which the great house sheltered somewhere in its walls, he took +from his coat-pocket a French _Anthologie_ which had been Catherine's +birthday gift to him, and read a little before he fell asleep. + +Then he slept profoundly--the sleep of exhaustion. Suddenly he found +himself sitting up in bed, his heart beating to suffocation, strange +noises in his ears. + +A cry 'Help!' resounded through the wide empty galleries. + +He flung on his dressing-gown, and ran out in the direction of the +squire's room. + +The hideous cries and scuffling grew more apparent as he reached it. At +that moment Benson, the man who had helped to carry the squire, ran up. + +'My God, sir!' he said, deadly white, 'another attack!' + +The squire's room was empty, but the door into the lumber-room +adjoining it was open, and the stifled sounds came through it. + +They rushed in and found Meyrick struggling in the grip of a white +figure, that seemed to have the face of a fiend and the grip of a tiger. +Those old bloodshot eyes--those wrinkled hands on the throat of the +doctor--horrible! + +They released poor Meyrick, who staggered bleeding into the squire's +room. Then Robert and Benson got the squire back by main force. The +whole face was convulsed, the poor shrunken limbs rigid as iron. +Meyrick, who was sitting gasping, by a superhuman effort of will +mastered himself enough to give directions for a strong opiate. Benson +managed to control the madman while Robert found it. Then between them +they got it swallowed. + +But nature had been too quick for them. Before the opiate could have had +time to work, the squire shrank together like a puppet of which the +threads are loosened, and fell heavily sideways out of his captors' +hands on to the bed. They laid him there, tenderly covering him from the +January cold. The swollen eyelids fell, leaving just a thread of white +visible underneath, the clenched hands slowly relaxed; the loud +breathing seemed to be the breathing of death. + +Meyrick, whose wound on the head had been hastily bound up, threw +himself beside the bed. The night-light beyond cast a grotesque shadow +of him on the wall, emphasising, as though in mockery, the long straight +back, the ragged whiskers, the strange ends and horns of the bandage. +But the passion in the old face was as purely tragic as any that ever +spoke through the lips of an Antigone or a Gloucester. + +'The last--the last!' he said, choked, the tears falling down his lined +cheeks on to the squire's hand. 'He can never rally from this. And I was +fool enough to think yesterday I had pulled him through!' + +Again a long gaze of inarticulate grief; then he looked up at Robert. + +'He wouldn't have Benson to-night. I slept in the next room with the +door ajar. A few minutes ago I heard him moving. I was up in an instant, +and found him standing by that door, peering through, bare-footed, a +wind like ice coming up. He looked at me, frowning, all in a flame. "_My +father_," he said--"_my father_--he went that way--what do _you_ want +here? Keep back!" I threw myself on him; he had something sharp which +scratched me on the temple; I got that away from him, but it was his +hands'--and the old man shuddered. 'I thought they would have done for +me before any one could hear, and that then he would kill himself as his +father did.' + +Again he hung over the figure on the bed--his own withered hand stroking +that of the squire with a yearning affection. + +'When was the last attack?' asked Robert sadly. + +'A month ago, sir, just after they got back. Ah, Mr. Elsmere, he +suffered. And he's been so lonely. No one to cheer him, no one to please +him with his food--to put his cushions right--to coax him up a bit, and +that--and his poor sister too, always there before his eyes. Of course +he would stand to it he liked to be alone. But I'll never believe men +are made so unlike one to the other. The Almighty meant a man to have a +wife or a child about him when he comes to the last. He missed you, sir, +when you went away. Not that he'd say a word, but he moped. His books +didn't seem to please him, nor anything else. I've just broke my heart +over him this last year.' + +There was silence a moment in the big room, hung round with the shapes +of bygone Wendovers. The opiate had taken effect. The squire's +countenance was no longer convulsed. The great brow was calm; a more +than common dignity and peace spoke from the long peaked face. Robert +bent over him. The madman, the cynic, had passed away: the dying scholar +and thinker lay before him. + +'Will he rally?' he asked, under his breath. + +Meyrick shook his head. + +'I doubt it. It has exhausted all the strength he had left. The heart is +failing rapidly. I think he will sleep away. And, Mr. Elsmere, you +go--go and sleep. Benson and I'll watch. Oh, my scratch is nothing, sir. +I'm used to a rough-and-tumble life. But you go. If there's a change +we'll wake you.' + +Elsmere bent down and kissed the squire's forehead tenderly, as a son +might have done. By this time he himself could hardly stand. He crept +away to his own room, his nerves still quivering with the terror of that +sudden waking, the horror of that struggle. + +It was impossible to sleep. The moon was at the full outside. He drew +back the curtains, made up the fire, and, wrapping himself in a fur coat +which Flaxman had lately forced upon him, sat where he could see the +moonlit park, and still be within the range of the blaze. + +As the excitement passed away a reaction of feverish weakness set in. +The strangest whirlwind of thoughts fled through him in the darkness, +suggested very often by the figures on the seventeenth-century tapestry +which lined the walls. Were those the trees in the wood-path? Surely +that was Catherine's figure, trailing--and that dome--strange! Was he +still walking in Grey's funeral procession, the Oxford buildings looking +sadly down? Death here! Death there! Death everywhere, yawning under +life from the beginning! The veil which hides the common abyss, in sight +of which men could not always hold themselves and live, is rent asunder, +and he looks shuddering into it. + +Then the image changed, and in its stead, that old familiar image of the +river of Death took possession of him. He stood himself on the brink; on +the other side were Grey and the squire. But he felt no pang of +separation, of pain; for he himself was just about to cross and join +them! And during a strange brief lull of feeling the mind harboured +image and expectation alike with perfect calm. + +Then the fever-spell broke--the brain cleared--and he was terribly +himself again. Whence came it--this fresh inexorable consciousness? He +tried to repel it, to forget himself, to cling blindly, without thought, +to God's love and Catherine's. But the anguish mounted fast. On the one +hand, this fast-growing certainty, urging and penetrating through every +nerve and fibre of the shaken frame; on the other, the ideal fabric of +his efforts and his dreams, the New Jerusalem of a regenerate faith; the +poor, the loving, and the simple walking therein! + +'_My God! my God! no time, no future!_' + +In his misery he moved to the uncovered window, and stood looking +through it, seeing and not seeing. Outside, the river, just filmed with +ice, shone under the moon; over it bent the trees, laden with +hoar-frost. Was that a heron, rising for an instant, beyond the bridge, +in the unearthly blue? + +And quietly--heavily--like an irrevocable sentence, there came, breathed +to him as it were from that winter cold and loneliness, words that he +had read an hour or two before, in the little red book beside his +hand--words in which the gayest of French poets has fixed, as though by +accident, the most tragic of all human cries-- + + 'Quittez le long espoir, et les vastes pensees.' + +He sank on his knees, wrestling with himself and with the bitter longing +for life, and the same words rang through him, deafening every cry but +their own. + +'_Quittez--quittez--le long espoir et les vastes pensees!_' + + + + +CHAPTER LI + + +There is little more to tell. The man who had lived so fast was no long +time dying. The eager soul was swift in this as in all else. + +The day after Elsmere's return from Murewell, where he left the squire +still alive (the telegram announcing the death reached Bedford Square a +few hours after Robert's arrival), Edmondson came up to see him and +examine him. He discovered tubercular disease of the larynx, which +begins with slight hoarseness and weakness, and develops into one of the +most rapid forms of phthisis. In his opinion it had been originally set +up by the effects of the chill at Petites Dalles acting upon a +constitution never strong, and at that moment peculiarly susceptible to +mischief. And of course the speaking and preaching of the last four +months had done enormous harm. + +It was with great outward composure that Elsmere received his _arret de +mort_ at the hands of the young doctor, who announced the result of his +examination with a hesitating lip and a voice which struggled in vain to +preserve its professional calm. He knew too much of medicine himself to +be deceived by Edmondson's optimist remarks as to the possible effect of +a warm climate like Algiers on his condition. He sat down, resting his +head on his hands a moment; then, wringing Edmondson's hand, he went out +feebly to find his wife. + +Catherine had been waiting in the dining-room, her whole soul one dry +tense misery. She stood looking out of the window taking curious heed of +a Jewish wedding that was going on in the square, of the preposterous +bouquets of the coachman and the gaping circle of errand-boys. How +pinched the bride looked in the north wind! + +When the door opened and Catherine saw her husband come in--her young +husband, to whom she had been married not yet four years--with that +indescribable look in the eyes which seemed to divine and confirm all +those terrors which had been shaking her during her agonised waiting, +there followed a moment between them which words cannot render. When it +ended--that half-articulate convulsion of love and anguish--she found +herself sitting on the sofa beside him, his head on her breast, his hand +clasping hers. + +'Do you wish me to go, Catherine?' he asked her gently,--'to Algiers?' + +Her eyes implored for her. + +'Then I will,' he said, but with a long sigh. 'It will only prolong it +two months,' he thought; 'and does one not owe it to the people for whom +one has tried to live, to make a brave end among them? Ah, no! no! those +two months are _hers_!' + +So, without any outward resistance, he let the necessary preparations be +made. It wrung his heart to go, but he could not wring hers by staying. + +After his interview with Robert, and his further interview with +Catherine, to whom he gave the most minute recommendations and +directions, with a reverent gentleness which seemed to make the true +state of the case more ghastly plain to the wife than ever, Edmondson +went off to Flaxman. + +Flaxman heard his news with horror. + +'A _bad_ case, you say--advanced?' + +'A bad case!' Edmondson repeated gloomily. 'He has been fighting against +it too long under that absurd delusion of clergyman's throat. If only +men would not insist upon being their own doctors! And, of course, that +going down to Murewell the other day was madness. I shall go with him to +Algiers, and probably stay a week or two. To think of that life, that +career, cut short! This is a queer sort of world!' + +When Flaxman went over to Bedford Square in the afternoon, he went like +a man going himself to execution. In the hall he met Catherine. + +'You have seen Dr. Edmondson?' she asked, pale and still, except for a +little nervous quivering of the lip. + +He stooped and kissed her hand. + +'Yes. He says he goes with you to Algiers. I will come after if you will +have me. The climate may do wonders.' + +She looked at him with the most heart-rending of smiles. + +'Will you go in to Robert? He is in the study.' + +He went, in trepidation, and found Robert lying tucked up on the sofa, +apparently reading. + +'Don't--don't, old fellow,' he said affectionately, as Flaxman almost +broke down. 'It comes to all of us sooner or later. Whenever it comes we +think it too soon. I believe I have been sure of it for some time. We +are such strange creatures! It has been so present to me lately that +life was too good to last. You remember the sort of feeling one used to +have as a child about some treat in the distance--that it was too much +joy--that something was sure to come between you and it? Well, in a +sense, I have had my joy, the first-fruits of it at least.' + +But as he threw his arms behind his head, leaning back on them, Flaxman +saw the eyes darken and the naive boyish mouth contract, and knew that +under all these brave words there was a heart which hungered. + +'How strange!' Robert went on reflectively; 'yesterday I was travelling, +walking like other men, a member of society. To-day I am an invalid; in +the true sense, a man no longer. The world has done with me; a barrier I +shall never recross has sprung up between me and it.--Flaxman, to-night +is the story-telling. Will you read to them? I have the book here +prepared--some scenes from David Copperfield. And you will tell them?' + +A hard task, but Flaxman undertook it. Never did he forget the scene. +Some ominous rumour had spread, and the New Brotherhood was besieged. +Impossible to give the reading. A hall full of strained upturned faced +listened to Flaxman's announcement, and to Elsmere's messages of cheer +and exhortation, and then a wild wave of grief spread through the place. +The street outside was blocked, men looking dismally into each other's +eyes, women weeping, children sobbing for sympathy, all feeling +themselves at once shelterless and forsaken. When Elsmere heard the news +of it, he turned on his face, and asked even Catherine to leave him for +a while. + +The preparations were pushed on. The New Brotherhood had just become the +subject of an animated discussion in the press, and London was touched +by the news of its young founder's breakdown. Catherine found herself +besieged by offers of help of various kinds. One offer Flaxman persuaded +her to accept. It was the loan of a villa at El Biar, on the hill above +Algiers, belonging to a connection of his own. A resident on the spot +was to take all trouble off their hands; they were to find servants +ready for them, and every comfort. + +Catherine made every arrangement, met every kindness, with a +self-reliant calm that never failed. But it seemed to Flaxman that her +heart was broken--that half of her, in feeling, was already on the other +side of this horror which stared them all in the face. Was it his +perception of it which stirred Robert after a while to a greater +hopefulness of speech, a constant bright dwelling on the flowery +sunshine for which they were about to exchange the fog and cold of +London? The momentary revival of energy was more pitiful to Flaxman than +his first quiet resignation. + +He himself wrote every day to Rose. Strange love-letters! in which the +feeling that could not be avowed ran as a fiery under-current through +all the sad brotherly record of the invalid's doings and prospects. +There was deep trouble in Long Whindale. Mrs. Leyburn was tearful and +hysterical, and wished to rush off to town to see Catherine. Agnes wrote +in distress that her mother was quite unfit to travel, showing her own +inner conviction, too, that the poor thing would only be an extra burden +on the Elsmeres if the journey were achieved. Rose wrote asking to be +allowed to go with them to Algiers; and after a little consultation it +was so arranged, Mrs. Leyburn being tenderly persuaded, Robert himself +writing, to stay where she was. + +The morning after the interview with Edmondson, Robert sent for Murray +Edwardes. They were closeted together for nearly an hour. Edwardes came +out with the look of one who has been lifted into 'heavenly places.' + +'I thank God,' he said to Catherine, with deep emotion, 'that I ever +knew him. I pray that I may be found worthy to carry out my pledges to +him.' + +When Catherine went into the study she found Robert gazing into the fire +with dreamy eyes. He started and looked up to her with a smile. + +'Murray Edwardes has promised himself heart and soul to the work. If +necessary, he will give up his chapel to carry it on. But we hope it +will be possible to work them together. What a brick he is! What a +blessed chance it was that took me to that breakfast party at +Flaxman's!' + +The rest of the time before departure he spent almost entirely in +consultation and arrangement with Edwardes. It was terrible how rapidly +worse he seemed to grow directly the situation had declared itself, and +the determination _not_ to be ill had been perforce overthrown. But his +struggle against breathlessness and weakness, and all the other symptoms +of his state during these last days, was heroic. On the last day of all, +by his own persistent wish, a certain number of members of the +Brotherhood came to say good-bye to him. They came in one by one, +Macdonald first. The old Scotchman, from the height of his sixty years +of tough weather-beaten manhood, looked down on Robert with a fatherly +concern. + +'Eh, Mister Elsmere, but it's a fine place yur gawin' tu, they say. +Ye'll do weel there, sir--ye'll do weel. And as for the wark, sir, we'll +keep it oop--we'll not let the Deil mak' hay o' it, if we knaws it--the +auld leer!' he added, with a phraseology which did more honour to the +Calvinism of his blood than the philosophy of his training. + +Lestrange came in, with a pale sharp face, and said little in his ten +minutes. But Robert divined in him a sort of repressed curiosity and +excitement akin to that of Voltaire turning his feverish eyes towards +_le grand secret_. 'You, who preached to us that consciousness, and God, +and the soul are the only realities--are you so sure of it now you are +dying, as you were in health? Are your courage, your certainty, what +they were?' These were the sort of questions that seemed to underlie the +man's spoken words. + +There was something trying in it, but Robert did his best to put aside +his consciousness of it. He thanked him for his help in the past, and +implored him to stand by the young society and Mr. Edwardes. + +'I shall hardly come back, Lestrange. But what does one man matter? One +soldier falls, another presses forward.' + +The watchmaker rose, then paused a moment, a flush passing over him. + +'We can't stand without you!' he said abruptly; then, seeing Robert's +look of distress, he seemed to cast about for something reassuring to +say, but could find nothing. Robert at last held out his hand with a +smile, and he went. He left Elsmere struggling with a pang of horrible +depression. In reality there was no man who worked harder at the New +Brotherhood during the months that followed than Lestrange. He worked +under perpetual protest from the _frondeur_ within him, but something +stung him on--on--till a habit had been formed which promises to be the +joy and salvation of his later life. Was it the haunting memory of that +thin figure--the hand clinging to the chair--the white appealing look? + +Others came and went, till Catherine trembled for the consequences. She +herself took in Mrs. Richards and her children, comforting the sobbing +creatures afterwards with a calmness born of her own despair. Robson, in +the last stage himself, sent him a grimly characteristic message. 'I +shall solve the riddle, sir, before you. The doctor gives me three days. +For the first time in my life, I shall know what you are still guessing +at. May the blessing of one who never blessed thing or creature before +he saw you go with you!' + +After it all Robert sank on the sofa with a groan. + +'No more!' he said hoarsely--'no more! Now for air--the sea! To-morrow, +wife, to-morrow! _Cras ingens iterabimus aequor._ Ah me! I leave _my_ new +Salamis behind!' + +But on that last evening he insisted on writing letters to Langham and +Newcome. + +'I will spare Langham the sight of me' he said, smiling sadly. 'And I +will spare myself the sight of Newcome--I could not bear it, I think! +But I must say good-bye--for I love them both.' + +Next day, two hours after the Elsmeres had left for Dover, a cab drove +up to their house in Bedford Square, and Newcome descended from it. +'Gone, sir, two hours ago,' said the housemaid, and the priest turned +away with an involuntary gesture of despair. To his dying day the +passionate heart bore the burden of that 'too late,' believing that even +at the eleventh hour Elsmere would have been granted to his prayers. He +might even have followed them, but that a great retreat for clergy he +was just on the point of conducting made it impossible. + +Flaxman went down with them to Dover. Rose, in the midst of all her new +and womanly care for her sister and Robert, was very sweet to him. In +any other circumstances, he told himself, he could easily have broken +down the flimsy barrier between them, but in those last twenty-four +hours he could press no claim of his own. + +When the steamer cast loose, the girl, hanging over the side, stood +watching the tall figure on the pier against the gray January sky. +Catherine caught her look and attitude, and could have cried aloud in +her own gnawing pain. + +Flaxman got a cheery letter from Edmondson describing their arrival. +Their journey had gone well; even the odious passage from Marseilles had +been tolerable; little Mary had proved a model traveller; the villa was +luxurious, the weather good. + +'I have got rooms close by them in the Vice-Consul's cottage,' wrote +Edmondson. 'Imagine, within sixty hours of leaving London in a January +fog, finding yourself tramping over wild marigolds and mignonette, under +a sky and through an air as balmy as those of an English June--when an +English June behaves itself. Elsmere's room overlooks the bay, the great +plain of the Metidja dotted with villages, and the grand range of the +Djurjura, backed by snowy summits one can hardly tell from the clouds. +His spirits are marvellous. He is plunged in the history of Algiers, +raving about one Fromentin, learning Spanish even! The wonderful purity +and warmth of the air seem to have relieved the larynx greatly. He +breathes and speaks much more easily than when we left London. I +sometimes feel when I look at him as though in this as in all else he +were unlike the common sons of men--as though to _him_ it might be +possible to subdue even this fell disease.' + +Elsmere himself wrote-- + +'"I had not heard the half"--O Flaxman! An enchanted land--air, sun, +warmth, roses, orange blossom, new potatoes, green peas, veiled Eastern +beauties, domed mosques and preaching Mahdis--everything that feeds the +outer and the inner man. To throw the window open at waking to the depth +of sunlit air between us and the curve of the bay, is for the moment +heaven! One's soul seems to escape one, to pour itself into the luminous +blue of the morning. I am better--I breathe again. + +'Mary flourishes exceedingly. She lives mostly on oranges, and has been +adopted by sixty nuns who inhabit the convent over the way, and sell us +the most delicious butter and cream. I imagine, if she were a trifle +older, her mother would hardly view the proceedings of these dear +berosaried women with so much equanimity. + +'As for Rose, she writes more letters than Clarissa, and receives more +than an editor of the _Times_. I have the strongest views, as you know, +as to the vanity of letter-writing. There was a time when you shared +them, but there are circumstances and conjunctures, alas! in which no +man can be sure of his friend or his friend's principles. Kind friend, +good fellow, go often to Elgood Street. Tell me everything about +everybody. It is possible, after all, that I may live to come back to +them.' + +But a week later, alas! the letters fell into a very different strain. +The weather had changed, had turned indeed damp and rainy, the natives +of course declaring that such gloom and storm in January had never been +known before. Edmondson wrote in discouragement. Elsmere had had a touch +of cold, had been confined to bed, and almost speechless. His letter was +full of medical detail, from which Flaxman gathered that, in spite of +the rally of the first ten days, it was clear that the disease was +attacking constantly fresh tissue. 'He is very depressed too,' said +Edmondson; 'I have never seen him so yet. He sits and looks at us in the +evening sometimes with eyes that wring one's heart. It is as though, +after having for a moment allowed himself to hope, he found it a doubly +hard task to submit.' + +Ah, that depression! It was the last eclipse through which a radiant +soul was called to pass; but while it lasted it was black indeed. The +implacable reality, obscured at first by the emotion and excitement of +farewells, and then by a brief spring of hope and returning vigour, +showed itself now in all its stern nakedness--sat down, as it were, eye +to eye with Elsmere--immovable, ineluctable. There were certain features +of the disease itself which were specially trying to such a nature. The +long silences it enforced were so unlike him, seemed already to withdraw +him so pitifully from their yearning grasp! In these dark days he would +sit crouching over the wood fire in the little _salon_, or lie drawn to +the window looking out on the rainstorms bowing the ilexes or scattering +the meshes of clematis, silent, almost always gentle, but turning +sometimes on Catherine, or on Mary playing at his feet, eyes which, as +Edmondson said, 'wrung the heart.' + +But in reality, under the husband's depression, and under the wife's +inexhaustible devotion, a combat was going on, which reached no third +person, but was throughout poignant and tragic to the highest degree. +Catherine was making her last effort, Robert his last stand. As we +know, ever since that passionate submission of the wife which had thrown +her morally at her husband's feet, there had lingered at the bottom of +her heart one last supreme hope. All persons of the older Christian type +attribute a special importance to the moment of death. While the man of +science looks forward to his last hour as a moment of certain +intellectual weakness, and calmly warns his friends beforehand that he +is to be judged by the utterances of health and not by those of physical +collapse, the Christian believes that on the confines of eternity the +veil of flesh shrouding the soul grows thin and transparent, and that +the glories and the truths of Heaven are visible with a special +clearness and authority to the dying. It was for this moment, either in +herself or in him, that Catherine's unconquerable faith had been +patiently and dumbly waiting. Either she would go first, and death would +wing her poor last words to him with a magic and power not their own; +or, when he came to leave her, the veil of doubt would fall away +perforce from a spirit as pure as it was humble, and the eternal light, +the light of the Crucified, shine through. + +Probably, if there had been no breach in Robert's serenity, Catherine's +poor last effort would have been much feebler, briefer, more hesitating. +But when she saw him plunged for a short space in mortal discouragement, +in a sombreness that as the days went on had its points and crests of +feverish irritation, her anguished pity came to the help of her creed. +Robert felt himself besieged, driven within the citadel, her being +urging, grappling with his. In little half-articulate words and ways, in +her attempts to draw him back to some of their old religious books and +prayers, in those kneeling vigils he often found her maintaining at +night beside him, he felt a persistent attack which nearly--in his +weakness--overthrew him. + +For 'reason and thought grow tired like muscles and nerves.' Some of the +greatest and most daring thinkers of the world have felt this pitiful +longing to be at one with those who love them, at whatever cost, before +the last farewell. And the simpler Christian faith has still to create +around it those venerable associations and habits which buttress +individual feebleness and diminish the individual effort. + +One early February morning, just before dawn, Robert stretched out his +hand for his wife and found her kneeling beside him. The dim mingled +light showed him her face vaguely--her clasped hands, her eyes. He +looked at her in silence, she at him; there seemed to be a strange shock +as of battle between them. Then he drew her head down to him. + +'Catherine,' he said to her in a feeble intense whisper, 'would you +leave me without comfort, without help, at the end?' + +'Oh, my beloved!' she cried, under her breath, throwing her arms round +him, 'if you would but stretch out your hand to the true comfort--the +true help--the Lamb of God sacrificed for us!' + +He stroked her hair tenderly. + +'My weakness might yield--my true best self never. I know Whom I have +believed. Oh, my darling, be content. Your misery, your prayers hold me +back from God--from that truth and that trust which can alone be +honestly mine. Submit, my wife! Leave me in God's hands.' + +She raised her head. His eyes were bright with fever, his lips +trembling, his whole look heavenly. She bowed herself again with a quiet +burst of tears, and an indescribable self-abasement. They had had their +last struggle, and once more he had conquered! Afterwards the cloud +lifted from him. Depression and irritation disappeared. It seemed to her +often as though he lay already on the breast of God; even her wifely +love grew timid and awestruck. + +Yet he did not talk much of immortality, of reunion. It was like a +scrupulous child that dares not take for granted more than its father +has allowed it to know. At the same time, it was plain to those about +him that the only realities to him in a world of shadows were +God--love--the soul. + +One day he suddenly caught Catherine's hands, drew her face to him, and +studied it with his glowing and hollow eyes, as though he would draw it +into his soul. + +'He made it,' he said hoarsely, as he let her go--'this love--this +yearning. And in life He only makes us yearn that He may satisfy. He +cannot lead us to the end and disappoint the craving He Himself set in +us. No, no--could you--could I--do it? And He, the source of love, or +justice----' + + * * * * * + +Flaxman arrived a few days afterwards. Edmondson had started for London +the night before, leaving Elsmere better again, able to drive and even +walk a little, and well looked after by a local doctor of ability. As +Flaxman, tramping up behind his carriage, climbed the long hill to El +Biar, he saw the whole marvellous place in a white light of beauty--the +bay, the city, the mountains, oliveyard and orange-grove, drawn in pale +tints on luminous air. Suddenly, at the entrance of a steep and narrow +lane, he noticed a slight figure standing--a parasol against the sun. + +'We thought you would like to be shown the short cut up the hill,' said +Rose's voice, strangely demure and shy. 'The man can drive round.' + +A grip of the hand, a word to the driver, and they were alone in the +high-walled lane, which was really the old road up the hill, before the +French brought zigzags and civilisation. She gave him news of +Robert--better than he had expected. Under the influence of one of the +natural reactions that wait on illness, the girl's tone was cheerful, +and Flaxman's spirits rose. They talked of the splendour of the day, the +discomforts of the steamer, the picturesqueness of the landing--of +anything and everything but the hidden something which was responsible +for the dancing brightness in his eyes, the occasional swift veiling of +her own. + +Then, at an angle of the lane, where a little spring ran cool and brown +into a moss-grown trough, where the blue broke joyously through the gray +cloud of olive-wood, where not a sight or sound was to be heard of all +the busy life which hides and nestles along the hill, he stopped, his +hands seizing hers. + +'How long?' he said, flushing, his light overcoat falling back from his +strong, well-made frame; 'from August to February--how long?' + +No more! It was most natural, nay, inevitable. For the moment death +stood aside and love asserted itself. But this is no place to chronicle +what it said. + +And he had hardly asked, and she had hardly yielded, before the same +misgiving, the same shrinking, seized on the lovers themselves. They +sped up the hill, they crept into the house, far apart. It was agreed +that neither of them should say a word. + + * * * * * + +But, with that extraordinarily quick perception that sometimes goes with +such a state as his, Elsmere had guessed the position of things before +he and Flaxman had been half an hour together. He took a boyish pleasure +in making his friend confess himself, and, when Flaxman left him, at +once sent for Catherine and told her. + +Catherine, coming out afterwards, met Flaxman in the little tiled hall. +How she had aged and blanched! She stood a moment opposite to him, in +her plain long dress with its white collar and cuffs, her face working a +little. + +'We are so glad!' she said, but almost with a sob--'God bless you!' + +And, wringing his hand, she passed away from him, hiding her eyes, but +without a sound. When they met again she was quite self-contained and +bright, talking much both with him and Rose about the future. + +And one little word of Rose's must be recorded here, for those who have +followed her through these four years. It was at night, when Robert, +with smiles, had driven them out of doors to look at the moon over the +bay, from the terrace just beyond the windows. They had been sitting on +the balustrade talking of Elsmere. In this nearness to death, Rose had +lost her mocking ways; but she was shy and difficult, and Flaxman felt +it all very strange, and did not venture to woo her much. + +When, all at once, he felt her hand steal trembling, a little white +suppliant, into his, and her face against his shoulder. + +'You won't--you won't ever be angry with me for making you wait like +that? It was impertinent--it was like a child playing tricks!' + + * * * * * + +Flaxman was deeply shocked by the change in Robert. He was terribly +emaciated. They could only talk at rare intervals in the day, and it was +clear that his nights were often one long struggle for breath. But his +spirits were extraordinarily even, and his days occupied to a point +Flaxman could hardly have believed. He would creep downstairs at eleven, +read his English letters (among them always some from Elgood Street), +write his answers to them--those difficult scrawls are among the +treasured archives of a society which is fast gathering to itself some +of the best life in England--then often fall asleep with fatigue. After +food there would come a short drive, or, if the day was very warm, an +hour or two of sitting outside, generally his best time for talking. He +had a wheeled chair in which Flaxman would take him across to the +convent garden--a dream of beauty. Overhead an orange canopy--leaf and +blossom and golden fruit all in simultaneous perfection; underneath a +revel of every imaginable flower--narcissus and anemones, geraniums and +clematis; and all about, hedges of monthly roses, dark red and pale +alternately, making a roseleaf carpet under their feet. Through the +tree-trunks shone the white sun-warmed convent, and far beyond were +glimpses of downward-trending valleys edged by twinkling sea. + +Here, sensitive and receptive to his last hour, Elsmere drank in beauty +and delight; talking, too, whenever it was possible to him, of all +things in heaven and earth. Then, when he came home, he would have out +his books and fall to some old critical problem--his worn and scored +Greek Testament always beside him, the quick eye making its way through +some new monograph or other, the parched lips opening every now and then +to call Flaxman's attention to some fresh light on an obscure +point--only to relinquish the effort again and again with an unfailing +patience. + +But though he would begin as ardently as ever, he could not keep his +attention fixed to these things very long. Then it would be the turn of +his favourite poets--Wordsworth, Tennyson, Virgil. Virgil perhaps most +frequently. Flaxman would read the AEneid aloud to him, Robert following +the passages he loved best in a whisper, his hand resting the while in +Catherine's. And then Mary would be brought in, and he would lie +watching her while she played. + +'I have had a letter,' he said to Flaxman one afternoon, 'from a Broad +Church clergyman in the Midlands, who imagines me to be still militant +in London, protesting against the "absurd and wasteful isolation" of the +New Brotherhood. He asks me why instead of leaving the Church I did not +join the Church Reform Union, why I did not attempt to widen the Church +from within, and why we in Elgood Street are not now in organic +connection with the new Broad Church settlement in East London. I +believe I have written him rather a sharp letter; I could not help it. +It was borne in on me to tell him that it is all owing to him and his +brethren that we are in the muddle we are in to-day. Miracle is to our +time what the law was to the early Christians. We _must_ make up our +minds about it one way or the other. And if we decide to throw it over +as Paul threw over the law, then we must _fight_ as he did. There is no +help in subterfuge, no help in anything but a perfect sincerity. We must +come out of it. The ground must be cleared; then may come the +re-building. Religion itself, the peace of generations to come, is at +stake. If we could wait indefinitely while the Church widened, well and +good. But we have but the one life, the one chance of saying the word or +playing the part assigned us.' + +On another occasion, in the convent garden, he broke out with-- + +'I often lie here, Flaxman, wondering at the way in which men become the +slaves of some metaphysical word--_personality_, or _intelligence_, or +what not! What meaning can they have as applied to _God_? Herbert +Spencer is quite right. We no sooner attempt to define what we mean by a +Personal God than we lose ourselves in labyrinths of language and logic. +But why attempt it at all? I like that French saying, "_Quand on me +demande ce que c'est que Dieu, je l'ignore; quand on ne me le demande +pas, je le sais tres-bien!_" No, we cannot realise Him in words--we can +only live in Him, and die to Him!' + +On another occasion, he said, speaking to Catherine of the squire and of +Meyrick's account of his last year of life-- + +'How selfish one is, _always_--when one least thinks it! How could I +have forgotten him so completely as I did during all that New +Brotherhood time? Where, what is he now? Ah! if somewhere, somehow, one +could----' + +He did not finish the sentence, but the painful yearning of his look +finished it for him. + +But the days passed on, and the voice grew rarer, the strength feebler. +By the beginning of March all coming downstairs was over. He was +entirely confined to his room, almost to his bed. Then there came a +horrible week, when no narcotics took effect, when every night was a +wrestle for life, which it seemed must be the last. They had a good +nurse, but Flaxman and Catherine mostly shared the watching between +them. + +One morning he had just dropped into a fevered sleep. Catherine was +sitting by the window gazing out into a dawn-world of sun which reminded +her of the summer sunrises at Petites Dalles. She looked the shadow of +herself. Spiritually, too, she was the shadow of herself. Her life was +no longer her own: she lived in him--in every look of those eyes--in +every movement of that wasted frame. + +As she sat there, her Bible on her knee, her strained unseeing gaze +resting on the garden and the sea, a sort of hallucination took +possession of her. It seemed to her that she saw the form of the Son of +man passing over the misty slope in front of her, that the dim majestic +figure turned and beckoned. In her half-dream she fell on her knees. +'Master!' she cried in agony, 'I cannot leave him! Call me not! My life +is here. I have no heart--it beats in his.' + +And the figure passed on, the beckoning hand dropping at its side. She +followed it with a sort of anguish, but it seemed to her as though mind +and body were alike incapable of moving--that she would not if she +could. Then suddenly a sound from behind startled her. She turned, her +trance shaken off in an instant, and saw Robert sitting up in bed. + +For a moment her lover, her husband, of the early days was before +her--as she ran to him. But he did not see her. + +An ecstasy of joy was on his face; the whole man bent forward listening. + +'_The child's cry!--thank God! Oh! Meyrick--Catherine--thank God!_' + +And she knew that he stood again on the stairs at Murewell in that +September night which gave them their first-born, and that he thanked +God because her pain was over. + +An instant's strained looking, and, sinking back into her arms, he gave +two or three gasping breaths, and died. + + * * * * * + +Five days later Flaxman and Rose brought Catherine home. It was supposed +that she would return to her mother at Burwood. Instead, she settled +down again in London, and not one of those whom Robert Elsmere had loved +was forgotten by his widow. Every Sunday morning, with her child beside +her, she worshipped in the old ways; every Sunday afternoon saw her +black-veiled figure sitting motionless in a corner of the Elgood Street +Hall. In the week she gave all her time and money to the various works +of charity which he had started. But she held her peace. Many were +grateful to her; some loved her; none understood her. She lived for one +hope only; and the years passed all too slowly. + +The New Brotherhood still exists, and grows. There are many who imagined +that as it had been raised out of the earth by Elsmere's genius, so it +would sink with him. Not so! He would have fought the struggle to +victory with surpassing force, with a brilliancy and rapidity none after +him could rival. But the struggle was not his. His effort was but a +fraction of the effort of the race. In that effort, and in the Divine +force behind it, is our trust, as was his. + + 'Others, I doubt not, if not we, + The issue of our toils shall see; + And (they forgotten and unknown) + Young children gather as their own + The harvest that the dead had sown. + + +THE END + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other +inconsistencies. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced +quotes and the like) have been fixed. Text that has been changed to +correct an error by the publisher is noted below: + +page 6: "adminstering" corrected to "administering" + + I actually wound up by administering some sal-volatile to her. + +page 42: added possible dropped word "the" + + But she turned and, with quickened breath, looked out of + [the] window after the retreating figures. + +page 121: part of text was added from another source because of unclear +scan: + + [and a ]desirable marriage spoilt, all for want of a little + common [sense and ]plain speaking, which _one_ person at + least in the [valley co]uld have supplied them with, had she + not been ignored [and brow] beaten on all sides. She + contained herself, however, [in his pres]ence, but the vicar + suffered proportionately in the [privacy of ]the connubial + chamber. He had never seen his wife [so exasperat]ed. To + think what might have been, what she [might have] done for + the race, but for the whims of two stuck-[up, sup]erior, + impracticable young persons, that would neither [ma]nage + their own affairs nor allow other people to manage [th]em for + them! The vicar behaved gallantly, kept the secret + +page 153: "apropos" corrected to "a propos" + + Langham's tone _a propos_ of Grey's politics and Grey's dreams + +page 228: "enjoys" corrected to "enjoy" + + his look, to examine his wine, study his menu, and enjoy his + entrees in silence, undisturbed by the uncertain pleasures of + +page 263: added comma: + + Two days later Mrs. Leyburn and Agnes made their appearance[,] Mrs. + Leyburn all in a flutter + +page 325: "seem" corrected to "seemed" + + drawing a long breath when she stopped, which seemed to + relax the fibres + +page 341: "everthing" corrected to "everything" + + Otherwise everything was forgotten. + +page 571: "reasuring" corrected to "reassuring" + + But there was something reassuring as well as comic + +page 585: "lorldly" corrected to "lordly" + + Vincent flung the door open with his old lordly air. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Robert Elsmere, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBERT ELSMERE *** + +***** This file should be named 24898.txt or 24898.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/8/9/24898/ + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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