CANON PASCAL.
The massive pile of the old Abbey stood darkly against the sky, with not
a glimmer of light shining through its many windows; whilst behind it
the Houses of Parliament, now in full session, glittered from roof to
basement with innumerable lamps. All about them there was the rush and
rattle of busy life, but the Abbey seemed inclosed in a magic circle of
solitude and stillness. Overhead a countless host of little silvery
clouds covered the sky, with fine threads and interspaces of dark blue
lying between them. The moon, pale and bright, seemed to be drifting
slowly among them, sometimes behind them, and faintly veiled by their
light vapor; but more often the little clouds made way for her, and
clustered round, in a circle of vaguely outlined cherub-heads, golden
brown in the halo she shed about her. These child-like angel-heads,
floating over the greater part of the sky, seemed pressing forward, one
behind the other, and hastening into the narrow ring of light, with a
gentle eagerness; and fading softly away as the moon passed by.
Felix stood still for a minute or two looking up from the dark and
silent front of the Abbey to the silent and silvery clouds above it.
Almost every stone of the venerable old walls was familiar and dear to
him. For Phebe, when she came from the broad, grand solitude of her
native moors, had fixed at once upon the Abbey as the one spot in London
where she could find something of the repose she had been accustomed to
meet with in the sight of the far-stretching horizon, and the unbroken
vault of heaven overarching it. Felicita, too, had attended the
cathedral service every Sunday morning, since she had been wealthy
enough to set up a carriage, which was the first luxury she had allowed
herself. The music, the chants, the dim light of the colored windows,
the long aisle of lofty arches, and the many persistent and dominant
associations taking possession of her memory and imagination, made the
Abbey almost as dear to Felicita as it was through its mysterious and
sacred repose to Phebe.
Felix had paced along the streets with rapid and headlong haste, but now
he hesitated before turning into Dean's Yard. When he did so, he
sauntered round the inclosure two or three times, wondering in what
words he could best move the Canon, and framing half a dozen speeches in
his mind, which seemed ridiculous to himself when he whispered them half
aloud. At last, with a sudden determination to trust to the inspiration
of the moment, he turned his steps hurriedly into the dark, low arches
of the cloisters.
But he had not many steps to take. The tall, somewhat stooping figure of
Canon Pascal, so familiar to him, was leaving through one of the
archways, with head upturned to the little field of sky above the
quadrangle, where the moon was to be seen with her attendant clouds.
Felix could read every line in his strongly marked features, and the
deep furrows which lay between his thick brows. The tinge of gray in his
dark hair was visible in the moonlight, or rather the pale gleam caused
all his hair to seem silvery. His eyes were glistening with delight, and
as he heard steps pausing at his side, he turned, and at the sight of
Felix his harsh face melted into almost a womanly smile of greeting.
"Welcome, my son," he said, in a pleasant and deep voice; "you are just
in time to share this glorious sight with me. Pity 'tis it vanishes so
soon!"
He clasped Felix's hand with a warm, hearty pressure, such as few hands
know how to give; though it is one of the most tender and most refined
expressions of friendship. Felix grasped his with an unconscious grip
which made Canon Pascal wince, though he said nothing. For a few minutes
the two men stood gazing upward in reverent silence, each brain busy
with its own thoughts.
"You were coming to see me?" said Canon Pascal at last.
"Yes," answered Felix, in a voice faltering with eager emotion.
"On some special errand?" pursued Canon Pascal. "Don't let us lose time
in beating about the bush, then. You cannot say anything that will not
be interesting to me, Felix; for I always find a lad like you, and at
your age, has something in his mind worth listening to. What is it, my
son?"
"I don't want to beat about the bush," stammered Felix, "but oh! if you
only knew how I love Alice! More than words can tell. You've known me
all my life, and Alice has known me. Will you let her be my wife?"
The smile was gone from Canon Pascal's face. A moment ago, and he,
gazing up at the moon, had been recalling, with a boyish freshness of
heart, the days of his own happy though protracted courtship of the dear
wife, who might be gazing at the same scene from her window in his
country rectory. His face grew almost harsh with its grave
thoughtfulness as his eyes fastened upon the agitated features of the
young man beside him. A fine-looking young fellow, he said to himself;
with a frank, open nature, and a constitution and disposition unspoiled
by the world. He needed nobody to tell him what his old pupil was, for
he knew him as well as he knew his own boys, but he had never thought
of him as any other than a boy. Alice, too, was a child still. This
sudden demand struck him into a mood of silent and serious thought; and
he paced to and fro for a while along the corridor, with Felix equally
silent and serious at his side.
"You've no idea how much I love her!" Felix at last ventured to say.
"Hush, my boy!" he answered, with a sharp, imperative tone in his voice.
"I loved Alice's mother before you were born; and I love her more every
day of my life. You children don't know what love means."
Felix answered by a gesture of protest. Not know what love meant, when
neither day nor night was the thought of Alice absent from his inmost
heart! He had been almost afraid of the vehemence of his own passion,
lest it should prove a hindrance to him in God's service. Canon Pascal
drew his arm affectionately through his and turned back to pace the
cloister once more.
"I'm trying to think," he said, in a gentler voice, "that Alice is out
of the nursery, and you out of the schoolroom. It is difficult, Felix."
"You were present at my ordination last week," exclaimed Felix, in an
aggrieved tone; "the Church, and the Bishop, and you did not think me
too young to take charge of souls. Surely you cannot urge that I am not
old enough to take care of one whom I love better than my own life!"
Canon Pascal pressed Felix's arm closer to his side.
"Oh, my boy!" he said, "you will discover that it is easier to commit
unknown souls to anybody's charge, than to give away one's child, body,
soul, and spirit. It is a solemn thing we are talking of; more solemn,
in some respects, than my girl's death. I would rather follow Alice to
the grave than see her enter into a marriage not made for her in
heaven."
"So would I," answered Felix tremulously.
"And to make sure that any marriage is made in heaven!" mused the Canon,
speaking as if to himself, with his head sunk in thought. "There's the
grand difficulty! For oh! Felix, my son, it is not love only that is
needed, but wisdom; yes! the highest wisdom, that which cometh down
from above, and is first pure, and then peaceable. For how could Christ
Himself be the husband of the Church, if He was not both the wisdom of
God and the love of God? How could God be the heavenly Father of us all,
if He was not infinite in wisdom? Know you not what Bacon saith; 'To
love and to be wise is not granted unto man?'"
"I dare not say I am wise," answered Felix, "but surely such love as I
bear to Alice will bring wisdom."
"And does Alice love you?" asked Canon Pascal.
"I did not think it right to ask her?" he replied.
"Then there's some hope still," said the Canon, more joyously; "the
child is scarcely twenty yet. Do not you be in a hurry, my boy. You do
not know what woman is yet; how delicately and tenderly organized; how
full of seeming contradictions and uncertainties, often with a blessed
meaning in them, ah, a heavenly meaning, but hard to be understood and
apprehended by the rougher portion of humanity. Study them a little
longer, Felix; take another year or two before you fix on your life
mistress."
"You forget how many years I have lived under the same roof as Alice,"
replied Felix eagerly, "and how many women I have lived with; my mother,
my grandmother, Phebe, and Hilda. Surely I know more about them than
most men."
"All good women," he answered, "happy lad! blessed lad, I should rather
say. They have been better to thee than angels. Phebe has been more than
a guardian angel to thee, though thou knowest not all thou owest to her
yet. But a wife, Felix, is different, God knows, from mother, or sister,
or friend. God chooses our kinsfolk for us; but man chooses his own
wife; having free will in that choice on which hangs his own life, and
the lives of others. Yet the wisest of men said, 'Whoso findeth a wife
findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord.' Ay, a good wife
is the token of such loving favor as we know not yet in this world."
The Canon's voice had fallen into a low and gentle tone, little louder
than a whisper. The dim, obscure light in the cloisters scarcely gave
Felix a chance of seeing the expression of his face; but the young man's
heart beat high with hope.
"You don't say No to me?" he faltered.
"How can I say No or Yes?" asked Canon Pascal, almost with an accent of
surprise. "I will talk it over with your mother and Alice's mother; but
the Yes or No must come from Alice herself. What am I that I should
stand between you two and God, if it is His will to bestow His sweet
boon upon you both? Only do not disturb the child, Felix. Leave her
fancy-free a little longer."
"And you are willing to take me as your son? You do not count me
unworthy?" he exclaimed.
"I've boys of my own," he answered, "whose up-growing I've watched from
the day of their birth, and who are precious to me as my own soul; and
you, Felix, come next to them. You've been like another son to me. But I
must see your mother. Who knows what thoughts she may not have for her
only son?"
"None, none that can come between Alice and me," cried Felix
rapturously. "Father! yes, I shall know again what it is to have a
father."
A sob rose to his throat as he uttered the word. He seemed to see his
own father again, as he remembered him in his childhood, and as Phebe's
portrait had recalled him vividly to his mind. If he had only lived till
now to witness, and to share in this new happiness! It seemed as if his
early death gathered an additional sadness about it, since he had left
the world while so much joy and gladness had been enfolded in the
future. Even in this first moment of ineffable happiness he promised
himself that he would go and visit his father's foreign grave.