Good George Lovegrove wandered solitary in Kensington Gardens. He had
chosen the lower path running parallel with Kensington Gore, which
leads, between flowerborders and thickset belts of shrubbery, from the
Broad Walk to the railings enclosing the open space around the Albert
Memorial. This path, being sheltered and furnished with many green
garden seats, is specially nurse and baby haunted, and it was to see
the babies, whether sturdily on foot or seated in their little
carriages, that George Lovegrove had come hither, being sad. Thrushes
sang lustily from the treetops. The flowerborders grew resplendent with
polyanthus, crocus yellow, purple, and white, with early daffodils, and
the heaven blue of _scilla sibirica_. Above, here and there a froth of
almond or cherry blossom overspread the dark twigs and branches, while
a ruddiness of burgeoning buds flushed the great elms. But babies of
position, looking like tiny pink-faced polar bears, still wore their
long leggings and white furs, the March wind being treacherous. They
galloped, trumpeting, the clean air and merry sunshine going to their
heads in the most inebriating fashion. It was early, moreover, so that
they were full of the energy of a good night's sleep, of breakfast, and
of comfortable nursery warmth. And George Lovegrove stepped among them
carefully, watching their gambols moist-eyed, nervously anxious lest
his quaintly solid figure should obstruct the erratic progress of
toy-horse, or hoop, or ball. He craved for notice, for even the veriest
scrap of friendly recognition, yet was too diffident to attempt any
direct intercourse with these delectable small personages, who, on
their part, were royally indifferent to his existence so long as he did
not get in their way. This he clearly perceived, yet for it bore them
no ill-will, preferring, as does every truly devout lover, to worship
the beloved from a respectful distance rather than not worship at all.
And it was thus, even as a large and dusky elephant picking its way
very gently through a flock of skippeting and lively lambs, that Mr.
Iglesias, entering the sheltered walk from the far end, first caught
sight of him. To Dominic, it must be admitted, babies, song-birds,
burgeoning buds and blossoms, alike presented themselves as but
elements in the setting of the outward scene--a scene sweet enough had
one leisure to contemplate it, touched by the genial vernal influence,
witness to nature's undying youth. But his appreciation of that
sweetness was just now cursory and indirect. His thought was absorbed
and eager, penetrated by apprehension of matters lying above and beyond
the range of ordinary human speech. For he was in that exalted interval
of a many hours' fast when the spiritual intelligence is wholly alive
and awake, the body becoming but the vesture of the soul--a vesture
without impediment or weight, a beautifully negligible quantity in the
general scheme of existence. Later reaction sets in. The claims of the
body become dominant; and the exalted moment is too often paid for
sorrowfully enough in sluggish brain and irritated nerves. Dominic,
however, had not reached that stage of the tragi-comedy of the marriage
of flesh and spirit. He was happy, with the white unearthly happiness
of those who have been admitted to the Sacred Mysteries. And it was not
without a sense of shock, as of rough descent to common things, of pity
and of regret, that he recognised good George Lovegrove cruising thus,
elephantine, among the roystering babes. Then Iglesias checked himself
sternly. To humble themselves, remembering their own great
unworthiness, to come down from the Mount of Transfiguration to the
dwellers in the plain, and be gentle and human towards them--this
surely is the primary duty of those who have assisted at the Divine
Sacrament? And so Iglesias went forward and hailed his old
school-fellow in all tenderness and friendship, causing the latter to
raise his eyes from pathetic contemplation of those charming but wholly
self-absorbed small human animals, and look up.
"Dominic!" he cried. "Well, to be sure, you do surprise me. Who would
have expected to meet you out at this hour of the morning? I do
congratulate myself. I am pleased," he said. His honest face beamed,
his fresh colour deepened. As a girl at the unlooked-for advent of her
lover, he grew confused and shy. And Iglesias warmed towards him.
Whimsical in appearance, simple-minded, not greatly skilled in any sort
of learning, yet he had a heart of gold--about that there could be no
manner of doubt.
"Turn back then, and let us walk together," Iglesias said
affectionately. "It is a long while since we have had a quiet
talk--that is, of course, if you have no particular business which
calls you to town."
"I have no business of any description," he answered. "And between
ourselves, Dominic, since I lost my seat on the borough council, I have
had too much time on my hands, I think. It is beginning to be quite a
trouble with me."
"Is life too softly padded, too dead-level easy and comfortable?"
Iglesias inquired. "Are you beginning to quarrel a little with your
blessings?"
George Lovegrove became very serious.
"Yes," he said, "I am afraid you are right. As usual you have laid your
finger on the spot. I do reproach myself for unthankfulness often. I
know I have a good home, and everything decent and respectable about
me; more so, indeed, than a man in my position has any right to expect.
And yet I regret the old days in the city, Dominic, that I do. I should
enjoy to be back at my old desk at the bank--just the little snap of
anxiety in the morning as to whether one would catch the 'bus; the long
ride through the streets with one's morning paper; the turning out with
the other clerks--good fellows all of them, on the whole, were they
not?--to get a snack of lunch. And then the coming home at night, with
some trifling present or dainty to please the wife; and a look round
the greenhouse and garden afterwards in your lounge suit; and hearing
and retailing all the day's news, and talking of the good time coming
when you would retire and be quite the independent gentleman; and the
half-day on Saturday, too, taking some nice little outing to Richmond
or Kew, or an exhibition or something of the sort, and then the
Sunday's rest."
He hesitated and sighed, looking wistfully at the white-clad babies.
"If one had two or three of those little people of one's own it might
be very different--though I would never breathe a word of such a
thought to the wife. Females are so easily upset; and if it raises
regrets in us men, it must be much more trying for them, poor things,
to be childless. But where was I? Yes, well now the good time has
come--and I feel a criminal in saying so, but it appears to me to be
growing stale already, Dominic. It was better in anticipation than in
fact. I am an ungrateful fellow, that I am, I know it; but sometimes I
am inclined to ask myself whether all the things we set such fond hopes
on are not like that."
"No, not all," Iglesias answered, with a certain subdued enthusiasm.
"There are things--a few--which never grow stale. One may build on them
as on a foundation of rock. If they ever seem to fail us, to be shaken
and overthrown, it is an evil delusion, and the cause lies not in them
but in ourselves. It is we who fail, who are shaken and overthrown
through palsied will and feebleness of faith. They remain forever
inviolate."
"I suppose so," the other man said timidly. He was unused to such
vehemence of assertion on the part of his friend. He wondered to what
it could refer. His thought, carrying back to the evening at the
theatre, played around visions of distinguished amours. Then he
steadied himself to heroic resolve.
"I suppose it is," he repeated, "and that makes my conduct appear all
the more discreditable to me. My circumstances are too comfortable and
easy. It is just that. And so I take to fretting over trifles and
seeing slights and unkindness where none were intended." He looked up
at Iglesias, his squinting eyes full of apology and admiration. "Yes, I
am sadly poor-spirited and I have no excuse. I have been nursing a
sense of injury towards those to whom I have most occasion for
gratitude--the wife and you. Dominic, believe me I am heartily ashamed
of myself."
"Come, come," Iglesias answered, brought very much back to earth, yet
touched and softened. "My dear friend, you of all men have small cause
for self-reproach. In every relation of life--and our knowledge of one
another dates back to early youth--I have found you perfect in loyalty
and unselfish kindness."
George Lovegrove walked on for a moment in silence. He had to clear his
throat once or twice before he could command his voice.
"Praise from you is very encouraging," he managed to say at last. "But
I am afraid I do not deserve it. I have felt mortified lately
sometimes, and I am afraid envious. I--but after your last words I am
more than ever ashamed to own it--I have fancied that you were becoming
distant and that an estrangement was growing up between us. Of course I
have always understood, though we happened to be school-fellows and in
the same employment afterward, that your position and mine were
different. And I want you to know that I would never be a clog on you,
Dominic"--he spoke with an admirably simple dignity--"believe me, I
never would be that. Lately I have been troubled by the thought that I
had extracted a promise from you to remain at Trimmer's Green. Now I
beg of you most earnestly not to let that promise, given in a moment of
generous indulgence, weigh with you in the slightest, if circumstances
have arisen which point at your residing in a more fashionable part of
the town."
"But why should I want to go to a more fashionable part of London?"
Iglesias asked, smiling.
"Well, you see," the other returned, his face growing furiously red,
"it came to my knowledge, unexpectedly, that you have acquaintances in
quite another walk of life to ours--the wife's and mine, I mean. And it
would pain me deeply, very deeply, Dominic, that any promise given to
me, regarding your place of residence, should stand between you and
mixing as freely with those acquaintances as you might otherwise do."
They had come to the place where the sheltered pathway is crossed by
the Broad Walk--the upward trend of which showed blond, in the
sunshine, against the brilliant green of the grass and the dark boles
of the great trees bordering it. Here Iglesias paused. He was not
altogether pleased.
"I do not quite follow you," he said coldly. Then looking at the
guileless and faithful being beside him, he softened once more. Was it
not only more just, but more honourable, to treat this matter with
candour? "You are alluding to the lady who was good enough to send for
me the night you and Miss Lovegrove went with me to the play?"
"Yes," the excellent George assented in a strangled voice. He wanted to
know badly. He was agonised by fear of having committed an indiscretion
offensive to his idol.
"Set your mind quite at rest on that point then, my dear friend. Her
world is not my world and never will be. In it I should be very much
out of place."
Iglesias moved forward again, crossing the Broad Walk and making
towards the small iron gate, at the lower corner of the Gardens, which
opens on to Kensington High Street. But he walked slowly, becoming
conscious that he grew tired and spent. The glory of the spirit
dominant was departing, the tyranny of the body dominant beginning to
reassert itself. His features contracted slightly. He felt
unreasoningly sad.
George Lovegrove walked beside him in silence, his eyes downcast, his
heart stirred by vague tumultuous sympathy, his modest nature at once
inflamed and abashed, recognising in his companion the hero of an
exalted and tragic romance.
"Well, he looks it. It suits his character and appearance," he said to
himself, adding aloud--for the very life of him he could not help
it--"But she was very beautiful, Dominic."
"Yes," Iglesias answered, "she is beautiful and very clever and--very
unhappy."
The good George's heart positively thumped against his ribs. "And to
think of all the plans the wife and I have been making!" he said to
himself.
"If she wants me, she will send for me," Iglesias continued quietly,
"and I shall go to her at once, as I went that evening, without
hesitation or delay, wherever she may be. But," he added, "it becomes
increasingly improbable that she will send for me. I have not seen her
or heard from her since that night. And so, my dear friend, you
perceive that your kindly fears of having circumscribed my liberty of
choice in respect of a place of residence are quite unfounded. I have
no reason for leaving Cedar Lodge or altering my accustomed habits."
Iglesias smiled affectionately, as dismissing the whole matter.
"And now," he continued, "that little misunderstanding being cleared
up, will you mind my turning into the restaurant just here, in High
Street, for a cup of coffee and a roll? I have not breakfasted yet."
Whereupon George Lovegrove pranced before him, incoherent in kindly
remonstrance and advice.
"At 11 A. M., and after your severe indisposition at Christmas, too,
out walking on an empty stomach! It is positively suicidal. Where have
you been to?" he cried.
"To Mass," Iglesias answered, still smiling, though with something of a
fighting light in his eyes and a lift of his head.
His companion stared at him in blank amazement.
"To what?" he said.
"To Mass," Iglesias repeated. "I have been waiting for a suitable
opportunity to speak to you of this, George. I, too, have felt the
weight of enforced leisure. It has not been a particularly cheerful
experience; but it has given me time to read, and still more to think,
with the consequence that I have returned to the faith of my childhood.
I have made my peace with the Church."
They continued to walk slowly onward; but George Lovegrove drew away to
the further side of the path as though contact might be dangerous, as
though infection was hanging about. He kept his eyes averted, his head
bent.
"You do surprise me," he said at last. "I had not the slightest inkling
that you were contemplating such a step. I give you my word, you have
fairly taken away my breath. I do not seem to be able to grasp it, that
you, whom I have always looked up to as so mentally superior, so
independent in your thought, should have become a Romanist--for that is
your meaning, I take it, Dominic?"
"Yes, that is my meaning," Iglesias answered.
"You do surprise me," George Lovegrove said again presently, and in a
lamentable voice. "My mind refuses to grasp it. I would rather have
lost five hundred pounds than have heard this. I declare I am fairly
unmanned. I have never received a greater shock."
Iglesias remained silent. He was weary and sad. But he straightened
himself, trying to keep his gaze fixed steadily upon the far horizon
where dwells the everlasting light.
"It is presumptuous in me to criticise your action, perhaps," his
companion continued. "I never did such a thing before, having always
hesitated to set up my views against yours; but I cannot but fear you
have made a sad mistake. And if you were contemplating any change of
this kind, why did you not come into our own national English Church?"
"Very much because it is English and national, I think," he answered.
"In my opinion there is an inherent falsity of conception in subjecting
our approach to the Absolute to restrictions imposed by country or by
race, if these can, by any means, be avoided. Why hamper yourself with
a late, expurgated, and mutilated edition, when the original, in all
its splendour and historic completeness, bearing the sign-manual of the
Author, is there ready to your hand?"
Again Iglesias spoke with subdued but unmistakable enthusiasm. The two
friends had just reached the iron gate leading into High Street. Here
George Lovegrove stopped. He still kept carefully at a distance,
averting his eyes as from some distressing, even disgraceful, sight,
while his good honest face worked with emotion.
"I think if you will kindly excuse me, I will go no farther," he
faltered. "What you say may be true--I am sure I don't know. It is all
beyond me. But I should prefer not to talk any more about it until I
have accustomed myself to the thought of this change in you. Nothing
does come between people like religion," he added with unconscious
irony. "So I think, if you will kindly excuse me, I will just go away,
Dominic."
And, without more ado, he turned back into the Gardens.
The small polar bears, meanwhile, satiated with exercise, air, and
light, had begun to grow restive and fretty. Their stomachs cried
cupboardwards, and they were disposed to filch each other's toy horses
and hoops, and use each other's small persons as targets for balls,
thrown as bombs in a fashion far from polite. Anxious maids and nurses
hunted them homewards, not without slight asperity on the one part, on
the other occasional squealings and free fights. But upon the babies,
engaging even in naughtiness, George Lovegrove had ceased to bestow any
attention. He went forward blindly, cruising among them and their
attendants and smart little carriages, elephantine, careless where he
placed his feet, to the obstruction of traffic and heightening of
general annoyance, as sorrowful a man as any would need to meet. For it
seemed to him things had gone wrong, just then, past all hope of
setting right. His idol, light of his eyes and joy of his guileless
heart, has fallen from his high estate, discovering capacity of playing
the most discreditable and soul-harrowing pranks. Prejudice is
myriad-lived here on earth; and in George Lovegrove all the bigotry,
all the semi-superstitious, terror fostered by the accumulated
ignorance which generations of Protestant forefathers have bequeathed
to the English middle-class, reared itself, not only stubborn, but
militant. His thought travelled back to those barbarities of rougher
ages which are, in point of fact, more common to the secular than to
the religious criminal code; but which Protestant teachers, even yet,
find it convenient to put down wholly to the account of the Catholic
Church. Practically ignorant of the spoliation and persecution
practised under Henry the Eighth--of blessed domestic memory--of the
further persecution which disfigured the "spacious days of great
Elizabeth," not to mention the long and shameful history of the Penal
Laws, he fixed his mind upon lurid legends of the reign of unhappy Mary
Tudor, illustrated by prints in Fox's Book of Martyrs; upon
inquisitorial tortures, the very thought of which--even out of doors in
the pleasant spring sunshine--made him break into a heavy sweat, and
which, by some grotesque perversion of ideas, he believed to be not
only the necessary outcome of, but vitally essential to, the practice
of the Faith. Against this hideous background he set the calm and
stately figure of his beloved friend Iglesias--seeing him no longer as
the faithful comrade of more than half a lifetime, but as a foreign
being, an unknown quantity, a worshipper of graven images, a
participant in blasphemous rites, a believer, in short, in just all
that which sound, respectable, and godly British common sense cast
forth, with scorn and contumely, close on four centuries back. He was
frightened. His everyday, comfortable, jog-trot, little odd and end of
a local parochial suburban middle-class world was literally turned
upside down and inside out.
"And however will the wife take it--however will she take it?" he
mourned to himself. "To think we have been harbouring a Papist in
disguise! I dare not contemplate her feelings. She will be upset. I
must keep it from her as long as possible. And Serena, too, and Susan!
I don't know how I can face them. Females are so very eloquent when put
out. Of course I have known there was something wrong for a long time
past. I saw there was a change in him, and felt there was some cause of
coldness; but it never entered my head it could be as bad as this. Oh!
my poor, dear friend. Oh! my poor Dominic, perhaps I have been
overattached to you and this comes as a judgment. It would be hard
enough to have anything break up our friendship, but this folly, this
dreadful doting apostasy--"
He walked on blindly along the sheltered path between the
flower-borders, deaf to remonstrant nurses and scornful, beautiful
babes clothed in spotless white.
"If anything must come between us I would rather it was a woman," he
mourned, "ten thousand times rather, whoever and whatever she was, than
this."