VESPERS.
Late one afternoon, during this visit of hers, Missy stole into the
little gallery by herself, and closed the door. The plaintive and
persistent bell had shaken out its summons in the house. Her mother
slept through it, overcome by the heat and by some unusual exertion in
the morning. Missy did not consider herself bound to assist at all the
offices, but she rather liked it, and crept in very often when no one
was noticing, and when she happened to feel well enough. A few poor
people came in this afternoon, and two or three Sisters. St. John said
the prayers. When the prayers were over, and he had gone into the
sacristy, Missy still lingered, leaning her head on the rail, and gazing
down into the church. St. John came out, after a moment, and the poor
people came up, two or three of them, and preferred petitions for
pecuniary or spiritual aid, principally pecuniary.
After their audiences were ended, they shambled away; the Sisters had
disappeared, and the church was empty but for one figure, standing near
the door. St. John gave an inquiring look, and made a step forward. The
lady, for it was a lady, seemed to hesitate, and her attitude and
movements betrayed great agitation. Some late rays of the afternoon sun
came piercing down through a high-up, colored window. Missy looked down
with keen interest upon the two; it was another scene in her brother's
life.
"You are too young for the care of penitents like that, my dear St.
John," she said to herself, sententiously. For the lady was pretty, more
than pretty, and young and graceful.
She came forward rapidly, her resolution once made, and stood before St.
John, half way down the aisle. He did not look very young, thanks to its
being "always fast and vigil, always watch and prayer," with him; his
peculiar dress made him seem taller than he really was, almost gaunt.
His face had a sobered, worn look, but an expression of great sweetness.
He carried his head a little forward, and his eyes, which were almost
always on the ground, he raised with a sort of gentle inquiry, an
appealing, wondering interest, to the face before him. Because, to St.
John, people were "souls," and he was always thinking of their eternal
state. As to a lawyer, those he meets are possible clients, and to a
doctor, patients, so to this other professional mind all were included
in his hopes of penitence or progress. He raised his eyes to the
new-comer's face, and Missy saw the start he gave, and the great change
that took place in his expression. It was as if he were, for a moment,
sharply assaulted with some strong pain. He put out his hand, and laid
hold of the wooden railing of a prayer desk near him, as if to steady
himself.
The lady, meanwhile, had not been too agitated to notice his emotion.
She eagerly scanned his face, stretched out her hand to him timidly,
then drew it back and clasped it in the other, and said something
pleadingly to him, looking up to him with tears. Seeing she did not make
him look at her again, and that he was rapidly gaining self-control, she
flushed, drew back, with a manner almost angry. But in a moment, some
humiliating recollection seemed to sweep over her mind and blot out her
involuntary pride. Her face darkened, and her mouth quivered as she
said, quite loud enough for Missy, in her loft, to hear:
"The only right I have to come to you, is that the wretched man whom you
have befriended, and whom you are preparing for the gallows, is the
man--to whom I am married."
St. John started again, and said--? The name Missy did not catch. The
stranger assented, and went on speaking bitterly, and with a voice
broken by agitation. "He tells me he has confessed to you. I do not
believe it--I do not believe he would tell the truth, even upon the
gallows. His perfidy to my poor sister, ruining her, breaking her heart,
destroying her chance of being happy in a good marriage--to me enticing
me away from you--and then dragging me through shame and suffering that
I cannot even bear to think of--his low vices--his heartless frauds--has
he told you all these?--You used to be young. I should think you would
soon be old enough if you have to hear many such stories. I should think
you would be tired of living in a world that had such things done in
it."
St. John did not answer. His eyes never now left the ground.
"I am tired of it," she cried, with tears. "I am tired and sick of life.
I want to die, and only I don't dare. Sometimes I come here to the
church and the music and the preaching seem to make me ashamed of my
wicked thoughts; but it doesn't stay, and I go back to all my miseries
and I am no better. I don't know what has kept me from the worst kind of
a life. I don't know what keeps me from the worst kind of a death. I
have sometimes wondered if it wasn't that you pray for me--among your
enemies, I suppose, if you do."
There was a pause, and then she went on: "Last Sunday night I heard you
preach; I had only heard your voice reading the prayers before that.
Ever since, I have wanted to speak to you to ask you about something
that you said."
Then St. John lifted his head and said, in a voice that was notably
calm, "I hope you will come here often, and, if you will let me, I will
ask Father Ellis to talk with you and to give you counsel. He has had
great experience, and he will help you."
Missy listened breathless for the words that came at last, after a
succession of emotions had passed over her face. "You have not forgiven
me!" she said. "Is that being good and holy, as you teach? You will not
talk to me and help me yourself, but send me to some one I don't know
and who won't understand. Why won't you forgive me? Heaven knows I have
been sorry enough and repented enough!"
A lovely smile passed over St. John's face, one would almost have said
there was a shade of amusement in it, but it was all gone in a moment,
and the habitual seriousness returned.
"I had never thought of any question of forgiveness," he said. "Be
assured of it in any case."
"Then why," she hurried on, keenly searching his face, "why will you not
let me speak to you? Why will you not teach me, and help me, as you say
Father Ellis would do?"
"Because it is not my part of the work. He has more experience."
"But you teach Armand. You spend hours in the prison. You have the
direction of souls there."
"That is a different work," he said, simply.
"Then," she exclaimed, passionately, "since you refuse me I will go
away. I have been hoping all this time for help from you. If you won't
give it, God knows, that is the end. I will not speak to strangers and
lay open my miserable past. I shall not listen to my conscience any
more. I will get out of my wretchedness any way I can. I might have
known that churches and priests would not do me any good."
"I should be sorry," he said, calmly, "to think you had come to such a
resolution. No one person is likely to do you more good than another. If
the intention of your heart is right, God can help you through one
person as well as through another."
"You distrust me," she said. "I suppose I ought not to wonder at it, but
I did not think men as good as you could be so hard. Why do you doubt
that the intention of my heart is right?"
"I have not said that I doubted it. I have only thought that if it were,
you would be glad to accept any means laid before you, of getting the
assistance that you feel you need."
The girl, for she looked only that, buried her face in her hands, and a
faint sob echoed through the empty church. "It would be so much easier
to speak to you; it's so hard," she murmured, "to tell a stranger all
you've done wrong, and all the miserable things that have happened to
you."
"You don't have to tell him all that has happened to you," he said. "You
have only to tell him of your sins. Let me add, that the priest to whom
I advise you to go, has great sympathy with suffering, and is very
gentle."
Missy hardly breathed, such was her interest in the scene before her.
She took in all the complication, the shock that seeing the woman for
whom he had had such strong feeling, had given St. John, the sorrow of
finding her bound to the miserable criminal, whose last hours he was
trying to purify, the fear of repulsing her, and the danger of
ministering to her. At first she had been overwhelmed with alarm for
him, the grace and beauty of the young creature was so unusual, her
desire to re-establish relations of intimacy so unmistakable. But
something, she did not know what, reassured her. Perhaps it was the
faint gleam of a smile on his face, when she asked him to forgive her;
as if he had said, "You ask me to forgive you for doing me the greatest
favor you could possibly have done." Perhaps it was that she felt
intuitively the inferiority of the woman's nature, that she knew St.
John had been growing away from her, leaving her behind with such
strides that she could not touch him. He was beyond danger from silken
hair or peach-bloom cheeks. If danger came to him, it would be in a
subtler form. She wondered at herself, feeling so confident; she felt
very sorry for the girl, not afraid of her. She looked back at the past,
and said to herself, "This pink-faced, long-lashed young thing has held
a great deal in her hands, but she holds it no more." Her sin and folly
turned more than one life into a new channel. St. John's, his mother's,
Missy's own, what marks they bore of her flippant treachery! She tried
to picture to herself how they would have been living, if, on that
October night, so long ago, St. John had brought her home, instead of
coming alone, with his ashy, dreadful face. If he had married her, and
come to live at Yellowcoats, perhaps, or near them. Ah! perhaps they
would all have been in the dear home. Would it have been better? Looking
at St. John, and looking at her, with the appreciation that she had of
her character from those few moments--would it have been better? No, it
would not have been better. Bitter as this change had been to her, Missy
knew in her heart it would not have been better. She knew St. John might
well smile at the idea of forgiving her, and she herself, though she did
not smile, could thank her, as she had said she thanked her, when she
stood by the mother's sleepless bed that night and heard the story.
There are some things that we cannot find words for, even in our
thoughts. She could not tell why, but she knew as well as if she had
spelled it out of Worcester and Webster that it was better for them all
to be living this life and not the old. She would have fain not thought
so, but she was convicted. The scene passing in the aisle below her, a
year ago, would have filled her with alarm, and have given her assurance
that her predictions were to be fulfilled. Now, in these bare walls, in
this dim house, "this life of pleasure's death," she felt how powerless
were such temptations, how different the plane on which they stood. It
was all to be felt, not explained. The young creature below her, turning
with a late devotion to the man who had outgrown her, still "blindly
with her blessedness at strife," could not see or feel it. Missy could
pity her, even as she watched her alternate art and artlessness, in
trying to arouse in him some of the old feeling. It was all in vain.
When the interview ended, and she went away, Missy watched her brother,
as he stood for a while, with his eyes fastened on the ground. Then,
with a long sigh, he walked through the church, adjusting a bench here,
picking up a prayer book there, and then went and kneeled down before
the altar. Missy felt he was not praying for himself, and for power to
resist a temptation, but for the soul of the poor undisciplined girl,
and the sinful man to whom she was bound.
The end of the story she did not hear at once. Her visit ended about
this time, and she only learned later from her mother, that St. John had
moved Heaven and earth to get the man pardoned. During the time of
suspense, the poor girl had been in a destitute and deplorable state,
but with enough good in her to listen to the teaching of Father Ellis
and the Sisters. In their house she had found shelter; and during
several weeks, Mrs. Varian had had her constantly with her. She never
saw St. John again, except in church. The pardon was despaired of, the
sickening days that were now growing fewer and fewer, were spent by St.
John, mainly with this man, and in the cells of the prison where he lay.
The wretched criminal was a coward, and broken down and abject, at the
approach of death. His late compunction softened his wife towards him;
with one of the Sisters she came often to the prison.
It was hailed with joy, in the still house, when word came, that at the
last hour he was pardoned, and that his wife was to meet him on board
the vessel that was to take them both to the new life, to which they had
pledged themselves. Poor Gabrielle was half reluctant, but she was
trying to be good, and was in earnest, in a childish sort of way. St.
John looked rather pale and worn after that, and came to Yellowcoats to
recruit for a day or two, or perhaps to see after Missy. His work had
lain principally among "wicked people," as he had proposed to himself in
early days. For some reason he made himself acceptable to prisoners and
outcasts. It is possible his great humility had as much to do with it,
as his sympathetic nature. At all events, he had had plenty to do, and
was quite familiar in prison cells, and at work-house deathbeds. When
this man (Armand) had come under his care, he was under sentence of
death, and was probably the wickedest of all his wicked people. He was
a foreigner, with a hideous past--how hideous, it was likely none but
St. John knew. He was condemned to suffer the penalty of the law, for a
murder committed in a bar-room fray, possibly one of the lightest of the
sins of his life. It was he who had ruined the life of poor little Jay's
mother, and plotted the death of her husband. He was a desperado, a
dramatic villain, the sort of man respectable people rarely meet, except
on the stage or in police courts.
St. John had not suspected the identity of his penitent with the man to
whom he owed it, that he wore a girdle round his waist, till the day
that Gabrielle came into the church. Poor Gabrielle! It was hard lines
for her to be sent off with the cowardly villain, but there seemed no
other way to settle the fate of both of them, considering that they were
married to each other. A lingering pity filled St. John's heart when he
thought of her, and of the terrible fate to which she had bound herself.
All this sort of thing is exhausting to the nerves, and no one could
begrudge St. John his day and a half of rest by Yellowcoats bay. He and
his fellow-workers took very few such days. Their hands were quite full
of work, not of a sentimental kind. It takes money to send criminals and
their families away to lead new lives in new lands, and money does not
always come for the wishing. It takes time and the expenditure of
thought to prepare men for the gallows, to get their pardons for them if
may be, to smoothe their paths, whichever way they lead; it is good hard
work to do these things, and many like them, and takes the flesh off
men's bones, and wears out nerves and brains almost as effectually as
stocks and speculations But there are men who choose to work in
obscurity in a service for which the world offers them no wages--only a
very stiff contempt.