STARTLING EFFECT OF "DR. BURLEY'S TRUE MEANING."
Leonard remained in New York, ignorant of the events which had
transpired at Stormpoint, concerning which, however, he was soon
informed by a letter written by Mrs. Joe, a letter which conveyed the
intelligence that his wife had fainted in the cemetery "as a consequence
of over-exertion," that Dr. Stanley wished the intended visit to Newport
to be made as soon as possible, that there was no need of his presence
in Easthampton, and that if he were to come there he would probably find
his wife already departed. All of which, though dictated by the
physician, had been written with misgiving, as conveying an insufficient
statement of the facts. But the doctor had been peremptory. "Keep them
apart," he had said. "The only subject on which Leonard can expatiate
just now is damnation, and of that the wife has had more than enough."
Leonard evinced no desire to follow the Newport party. Misled by the
communication from the lady of Stormpoint, and yet more influenced by
reluctance to enter the household of Mrs. Leon, of which household he
assumed Berthe Lenoir to be still an inmate, he was willing to enjoy a
holiday which he thought he had fairly earned. Mrs. Joe, though
surprised by his acquiescence, was relieved. She was still more
surprised when her keen vision detected that Natalie was equally
relieved. "It seemed," she observed to the doctor, "to lighten her
heart."
"Instinct," he replied, and made no further comment; but though
ordinarily very discreet as to professional matters, he mentioned the
circumstance to his wife, at the same time advancing a theory which
startled that lady.
Freed from anxiety concerning Natalie, whose letters, though very short,
reported continuing improvement in the matter of health, Leonard
resolved, for the present at least, to forget the ingratitude of
Hampton, and to enjoy to the fullest his bachelor outing. He recalled
his strolls on Parisian Boulevards, and in fancy lived in past delights,
promenading Broadway with the old Parisian strut, though modified, and
not oblivious of the fact that here, as in Paris, were handsome eyes,
not unwilling to return the glance of one who had been likened to a
Greek god.
Sometimes, indeed often, he lamented that his lot had not been cast in
the great world. His instincts truthfully told him that, as a man of
action, he would have presented no mean figure; there were even moments
when he wished, though he knew the futility of such a wish, that he
might never see Hampton or hear of theology again. This he knew well
enough was but the natural reaction from the strain of his recent
labors, but he toyed with the thought, half playfully, half regretfully,
as indicating one of the things that might have been. If there were any
conscience-pricks they were too feeble to be felt; he had ceased to be a
boy (so he said to himself); the boy, for instance, he had been when, on
the Heidelberg terrace, he had yearned over the erring soul of his
cousin. The religious sentiment which once had glowed so ardently in his
bosom was burned out, consumed in the heat of partisan theology; but
though he knew this, he did not know the meaning of the fact. To him it
meant that his salvation was assured, and with that conviction the great
concern of life had passed into the peace which passeth understanding.
Just now, however, he was not giving much attention to his personal
religious attitude, as he moved among the city's throngs well-clad, rosy
and with the form and grace of an athlete and the eager eyes of
innocence and unconscious desire. In the delight of the holiday, a
delight which sometimes rose to a surprising fervor, he thought of
certain Parisian peccadillos, and more than once half resolved to renew
his acquaintance with the ballet and _belles jambes_, like unto those of
Mademoiselle Coralie, which gamboled ravishingly in the haze of memory;
but he rejected the imprudent suggestion; he might be recognized, and
Brigston would rejoice in unholy glee, if its most potent adversary--he
wondered if this fact were known to the passers-by--were discovered in a
temple of dubious recreation. Such recollections brought Paris very
vividly before his eyes, and for some reason also the memory of Berthe
and of that rapturous kiss; and perhaps at such times the handsome face
assumed the look of which Mrs. Joe had disapproved.
The remembrance of Berthe recalled Natalie, who, as he believed, was in
the house with her former maid, and Natalie's beauty, and he was filled
with tenderness, and his soul yearned with a great longing, and had it
not been that Berthe was there he would have fled to Newport. He
recognized now a fact of which he had, in a vague way, been long
conscious, the fact that ever since the birth of the boy he and his wife
had grown somewhat apart. She had been engrossed with the child, and he
with his theological war. He regretted it, and resolved that it must not
be so in the future. Loving one another as they did, it would be easy to
grow together again. He would tell her how grievously he had been
treated by Hampton, in its envy; and on the beautiful bosom that he
loved and that was his own, would pour out his griefs and find sweetest
solace. If she would only curtail her visit!
One day there came a letter from his wife which he opened in the eager
hope that it would announce the termination of her stay in Newport. He
was disappointed in this, and was further rendered uneasy by the tone of
constraint in which it was written, or which he imagined; for if there
were constraint, it was hard to point out just where it lay; yet he
felt, if he could not see, that the pen of the writer had been heavy in
her hand. But he was more than uneasy; he felt resentment rising within
him as he read the postscript, which was as follows: "Do you believe
that there is an eternal hell and that many are condemned? Will you
answer this as briefly as possible?"
He studied the written words with growing annoyance. The curtness of the
question seemed to indicate that to the questioner the matter was of
minor import--trivial, in fact; if she really thought thus, then all his
recent labors had been labor in vain. Nothing had so angered him as
suggestions of this character, frequently made by a godless secular
press. One journal had, with pretended gravity, argued that since all
heathen and their progeny must be damned, extermination was more
merciful than the hopeless attempt at conversion, and at least as
practicable; another had flippantly suggested that Professor Claghorn be
required to demonstrate the utility of theological seminaries, since no
product of those institutions could, by any possibility, be instrumental
in saving a single soul--and so on. All of which he had borne with a
fair show of equanimity, but he had smarted; and now Natalie's question
seemed, at first sight, an echo of the unworthy journalistic jibes.
There might be various opinions concerning hell; it was conceivable that
the great majority preferred an attitude of incredulity as to its
inevitable destination; but, at least, it was a serious subject.
But later readings of the letter seemed to indicate that it had been
written with a heavy heart. There was affection in it, but a tone of
gloom as well, which, though Natalie admitted that her health was
completely restored, was too apparent to permit the supposition of a
trifling postcript. The inference, then, must be that she had arrived at
a not uncommon stage of religious agitation, often preliminary to
conversion, a stage which he knew to be frequently of intense suffering
to the neophyte, though satisfactory to pious observers, who were
inclined to see in the lowest depths of misery the sure precursor of the
highest joy. He had, himself, at an unusually early age, passed through
a similar experience, and though that period of anguish was so far
behind him that he could not recall its terrors, he knew that they had
been very dreadful, and that his parents, to whom he had been as the
apple of their eye, had been correspondingly complacent. There was, in
these days, less of the agonized form of religious experience, but he
could easily understand that it might happen to Natalie, who, in
religion, was still but a babe.
The only way to deal with the matter was the way in which it had been
treated in his own case. There must be no slurring of the truth. He
would disdain that course in private as much as he had disdained it in
public. Hampton might shrink from disclosure of eternal verity; he would
not.
Wherefore, he sent to Natalie his pamphlet, entitled, "Dr. Burley's True
Meaning," not sorry that she should see how clearly and uncompromisingly
he could state matters which others had been willing to obscure. The
true meaning of the Confession, and, therefore, of the Bible, and,
therefore, of the learned biblical scholar whose text Leonard
illuminated, was that the majority of mankind was on the way to a hell,
eternal, and of torture inconceivable.
The pamphlet was relentless, as was proper; but in his accompanying
letter to his wife Leonard was very tender. He showed her that there was
but one course to pursue in the face of indisputable truth, and that was
resignation to the will of heaven. Weak humanity might grieve over God's
will; such sorrow was certainly pardonable by man, but was nevertheless
rebellion; and, before complete reconciliation to God could be assumed,
must be dismissed from the heart. Leaving religion, he proceeded to tell
his wife that his longing for her was growing absolutely insupportable,
and he was much more fervid in his petition that she hasten her return
home than he had been in his doctrinal expositions. He dispatched his
letter, and returned to his former avocations, but with little spirit;
he longed for Natalie, and had no room for other than the thoughts that
accompanied his longing. In a few days he was able to start for home,
Natalie having, in a very short letter, in which she made no comment on
the one he had last written, announced her arrival in Hampton by a train
due there a few minutes later than the one from New York by which he
traveled, and when he finally alighted at the station, he was tremulous
with anticipation, and his disappointment was proportionate when the
Newport train arrived with none of the expected travelers.
There was nothing to do but to bear a revulsion of feeling, which was
actually painful. He walked across the Square to his home, and found the
maids with everything prepared for his arrival, and with a letter from
Natalie which informed him that she would be in Hampton on the
following morning.
He went early to bed, discontented and fretful. He slept badly, and in
the night got up and wandered restlessly about, and in his wanderings
made a discovery which might have remained unnoticed had the fancies
which vexed his repose been of a different character.
After the birth of her child, Natalie had occupied a room separate from
her husband's, in order that the latter, whose literary labors were
exacting, should not be disturbed. In his prowling Leonard discovered
evidences that this arrangement was to be continued, and as he stood in
the gaslight considering the tokens whereby he inferred that one room
was reserved for masculine, the other for feminine occupancy, he
mentally pronounced the arrangement unsatisfactory, and experienced a
feeling of vexation amounting to resentment.
But resentment gave way when, next morning, having seen Mrs. Joe and
Paula drive away to Stormpoint, and having followed Natalie to the room
which he had inspected the night before with dissatisfaction, he once
more held her in his arms. The light that gleamed from her eyes, the
roseate hue upon her feverish cheeks, the rich red lips upon which he
pressed his own hungrily--the beautiful reality, fairer than the fairest
vision of his hours of longing, banished every thought but one.
He held her long in a close embrace. He was very happy, and when she had
withdrawn from his arms he sat upon the edge of the bed telling her of
his disappointment of the day before, and of his nocturnal prowlings,
and laughingly advancing his objections to the sleeping arrangements she
had ordered. Meanwhile, she said but little, being engaged in searching
for something in her trunk. At length she found whatever she had been
seeking. "Leonard," she said, "go down to the library. I must speak to
you, but not here."
The manner and the tone puzzled him--then he remembered. He sighed
involuntarily. It was an inopportune moment to discuss conversion--but
since she was in its throes----He went downstairs; his face betrayed
vexation.
Soon she entered the room where he awaited her, seated in a big chair.
She knelt before him, taking his hand in hers. "Leonard," she said, "I
am sorry you don't like the arrangement of the bedrooms."
Her solemnity had led him to expect something of greater importance than
this, which was, however, decidedly a more welcome topic. "You know,
dearest," he said, with a quizzical look, "as husband and wife----"
"Leonard! Leonard! We dare not be husband and wife."
He stared at her in amazement. "What do you mean?" he said.
"I mean this," she answered, producing "Dr. Burley's True Meaning." "Oh,
Leonard! How could the same man write that book and be a father?"