XV

HEARTSICK WITH THOUGHT

Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. I

Instead of returning to Boston next morning, Maurice remained at

Brookfield for ten days. Mrs. Morison decided the matter, and it is not

to be supposed that he was entirely unwilling to be constrained.

He naturally saw much of Berenice, and he passed hours in brooding over

thoughts of her. He was convinced that she was not engaged. She had

spoken of Stanford's visit, and it had seemed to Wynne that she had

conveyed the impression that her relations to the visitor were less

intimate than might at first sight appear. If she were free--the

thought made his heart beat, and he wondered if, had the circumstances

been different, he might himself have won her. He tormented himself

with all her ways and words; the smiles she gave him, the trifling

attentions which were addressed to the guest, but which seemed to have

a touch of something deeper, that might be due to her thinking of him

as her preserver, but which might even go beyond that. There was a

delicious torture in all this reverie, in these continual

self-reproaches which involved the thought of her, the remembrance of

how she had looked, how she had spoken, how she had moved. He became

every day more hopelessly her slave, yet every day insisting more

strongly to himself that he felt nothing more than warm friend. Once

for a moment he tried to believe that his feeling was merely a desire

for her spiritual good, that his attitude was that which it was proper

for a priest to feel toward a beautiful and frivolous worldling; but

the pretense was too ghastly, and he abandoned it with a shudder of

disgust. He had moments, too, when he said to himself frankly, in

defiance or in sorrow as the mood might be, that he loved her; but for

the most part he tried to keep the assumption of simple friendship

between him and bitter thought.

He found great pleasure in Mrs. Morison. She was to him a revelation of

possibilities of which he had never dreamed. It was a continual

surprise to him to find himself so impressed by the wit, the wisdom,

and the sanity of this fine old lady. He not only felt himself an

ignorant and inexperienced boy beside her, but found himself shrinking

from comparing with her the men whom he had followed as leaders. The

ease of her manner, the completeness of her self-poise, her frank

simplicity, high-bred and winning, delighted him, while the extent of

her mental resources filled him with amazement.

Mrs. Morison opened to Wynne a new world in her conversation. At first

she gave herself up chiefly to entertaining him, telling him delightful

stories of famous folk she had known, of her life abroad and in

Washington. She was full of charming little tales which she had the art

of relating as if she were not thinking of how she was telling them,

but as if they came to her mind and bubbled into talk spontaneously.

She had a way, too, of putting in unobtrusive observations on character

and events which impressed Maurice. The art of saying things

trenchantly he had found in Mrs. Staggchase, but his cousin had the air

of being aware of her cleverness, while Mrs. Morison said these things

as if they were of the natural and habitual current of her thoughts.

Mrs. Morison said clever things as if she thought them; Mrs. Staggchase

as if she thought of them.

It did not take the young man long to discover that Mrs. Morison was

not in sympathy with his creed. She was too well-bred to bring the

matter forward, but he could not resist the temptation now and then to

touch upon it. She was of principles at once so broad and so deep that

he found himself as often surprised by her devoutness as he felt it his

duty to be shocked by her liberality. One day when Maurice had made

some allusion to a discussion over the doctrine of predestination which

was agitating the English church, Mrs. Morison said:--

"It always seems to me a pity that those who believe in that dreadful

doctrine do not remember that if one were not one of the elect, he

could at least carry through eternity the realization that he was lost

through no fault of his own. God could not take from him that

consolation."

He was silent in mingled amazement and disapproval; yet he found his

mind following out with obstinate persistence the train of thought

which her words suggested. In this or in many another remark it could

hardly be said that her words convinced him, but they awoke a swarm of

doubts in his mind. He found himself following speculations that were

lawless, wild, dangerous, and intoxicating. However convinced he might

be that the reasoning of Mrs. Morison was fallacious, he did not find

it easy to tell just wherein the fallacy lay. He felt that as a priest

he should be able to refute her, and he was filled with dismay to

discover that he was rather himself falling into the attitude of a

doubter.

One subject which was constantly in his mind he did not touch upon

until the day before he left Brookfield. He longed to sound Mrs.

Morison on the subject of a celibate priesthood. He was well enough

aware that she would not approve of it, and he was irritated by the

knowledge that he secretly felt that her decision would be founded on

strong common sense. He tried to assure himself that it was her

dangerous laxity of principle that blinded her to the nobility and

sanctity of asceticism; but it was impossible to feel that such was the

case. He was teased by a wish which he would not acknowledge that she

might advance arguments which he could not controvert; though to

himself he said that she would be his temptation in tangible form, and

that he would struggle against it with his whole soul.

His opportunity came while they were discussing the election of the

bishop. Mrs. Morison was not immediately concerned in the matter, not

being a churchwoman, but she had an intelligent interest in all

questions of the day.

"I find it hard to understand," Mrs. Morison observed, "how any

churchman can be so blind to the importance of conciliating public

thought and the general feeling as for a moment to think of any other

candidate than Mr. Strathmore. He is so completely in sympathy with the

broadening tendencies of the time."

"But that means ultimately the destruction of creeds," Maurice

objected, answering rather the implication than her words.

"I think that perhaps the highest courage men are called upon to show,"

she answered, "is that of giving up a theory which has served its use.

The race forces us to do it sooner or later, but the men who are really

great are those who are able to say frankly that their creeds have done

their work, and that the new day must have new ones. You might almost

say that the extent to which a man prefers truth to himself is to be

judged by his willingness to give up a dogma that is outworn."

"But you leave no stability to truth."

"The truth is stable without effort or will of mine," she returned,

smiling; "but surely you would have human appreciation of it advance."

He felt that there must be an answer to this, but he was not able to

see just what it was, and he shifted the question.

"But Mr. Strathmore," he said hesitatingly, "is married."

"Yes," she assented. "'The husband of one wife.'"

"If you begin to quote Scripture against me," Maurice retorted,

laughing in spite of himself, "I might easily reply to St. Paul by St.

Paul. But letting that pass, it is certainly true that the church has

always held that marriage absorbs a man in earthly things so that he

cannot give the best of his thoughts to his work."

"When the church sets itself against marriage," Mrs. Morison responded

quietly, "it seems to me to be setting up to know more than the Creator

of the race."

Maurice colored, although he might not have been able to tell whether

his strongest feeling was horror at this bold language or joy at the

emphasis with which she spoke.

"Perhaps I should beg your pardon for saying so frankly what I think,"

Mrs. Morison continued. "It isn't the way in which one generally talks

to a clergyman; but the subject is one for which I haven't much

patience, and of course I couldn't help seeing that you are in doubt

yourself."

Maurice started.

"What do you mean?" he stammered. "I--I in doubt?"

"I hadn't any intention of forcing your confidence," returned she. "I

am an old woman, and sometimes I find that I don't make allowance

enough for the slowness of you young people in arriving at a knowledge

of self."

He cast down his eyes.

"Until this moment," he said, "I have never acknowledged to myself that

I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been

playing with fire."

She looked at him questioningly, then turned the subject.

"Which is perhaps a hint that our fire is going down. Sit still,

please. Every woman likes to tend her own fire."

"I should have learned that by this time," was his answer. "I lost an

inheritance once by insisting upon fixing a fire."

"That sounds interesting. Is it proper to ask for the story?"

"Oh, there isn't much of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a

lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I

was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I

didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often

pretty queer. One of them was that nobody should presume to touch the

fire if she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as

she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After

she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that

it was my duty to cure her of her whim. So I set to poking the fire

ostentatiously until she lost her temper and ordered me out of the

house. Then she burned up the will in my favor and made a new one,

giving all her money to the church."

"How unjust," commented Mrs. Morison, "and how human. Did you never

make peace with her?"

"Yes, but of course I was careful that she should understand that I

didn't do it for the sake of her money. She told my mother that she had

made a new will in my favor, but it never turned up. My aunt's death

was very singular. She was found dead in her bed, and the woman who

lived with her, an old nurse of mine, had disappeared. Of course there

was at once suspicion of foul play, but the doctors pronounced the

death natural, and there was no evidence of theft."

"Did you never discover the nurse?"

"Never. We tried, for we thought she might give a clue to the missing

will. She'd been in the family so long that she was a sort of

confidential servant, and knew all Aunt Morse's affairs. She was

devoted to me."

"The romance may not be ended yet," Mrs. Morison suggested smilingly.

"Who knows but the missing nurse will some day turn up with the missing

will."

"I'm afraid that after a dozen years there's little enough chance of

it."

His mind was so racked upon this wretched question of the right of a

priest to marry, that he could not rest until he had drawn from

Berenice also an expression of opinion on the subject. He made Mr.

Strathmore again the excuse for the introduction of the topic.

"I don't see," he said to her, "how you can think that it's well to

have a married bishop. His wife is sure to be meddling in the affairs

of the diocese."

She looked at him with a mocking glance.

"Do you wish to drag me into a discussion of the wisdom of allowing the

clergy to have wives?" she asked cruelly.

He flushed with confusion, but tried to carry a bold front.

"Very likely it does come down to the general principle of the thing,"

he answered.

"Well then, the question of the marriage of the clergy doesn't interest

me in the least."

She looked so pretty and mischievous that he began to lose his head.

"But it is of the greatest possible interest to me," he returned, with

a manner which gave the words a personal application.

She flushed in her turn, and tossed her head.

"That is by no means the same thing," she retorted.

"But what interests me you might try to consider; just out of charity,

of course."

"Oh, well, then, since you ask me, this celibacy of the clergy of our

church isn't at all a thing that anybody can take seriously. Everybody

knows that a clergyman may have his vows absolved by the bishop, so

that after all he can marry if he wants to; so that the whole thing

seems"--

"Well?" he demanded, as she broke off. "Seems how?"

"Pardon me. I didn't realize what I was saying."

"Seems how?" he repeated insistently.

He challenged her with his eyes, and he could see the spark which

kindled defiantly in hers. She threw back her head saucily.

"Well, since you insist! I was going to say that it made the whole

thing seem a little like amateur theatricals."

He became grave instantly.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "You do not seem to understand that what

you are speaking of may mean the bitter sacrifice of a man's whole

life. Even a clergyman is human, and may love as strongly, as

completely"--

He choked with the emotion he could not control. He realized that he

was telling his passion, and there came to him an overwhelming sense

that he must never tell it save in this indirect manner. He hastened on

lest she should interrupt him.

"Don't you suppose that a priest may know what it is to worship the

very ground a woman walks on? Don't you suppose he has had his heart

beat till it suffocated him just because her fingers touched his or her

gown brushed him? A man is a man after all, and the dreams that come to

one are much the same as come to another. The difference is that the

priest has to tear his very heart out, and turn his back on all that

other men may find delight in."

Berenice looked at him with shining eyes, not undimmed, he thought, by

tears.

"If you really care for her so much," she said softly, "you can give

only a divided heart to your work. It is better to own that to

yourself, isn't it?"

"For her?" he echoed.

"Oh, there must be somebody," she returned hastily, her color coming.

"No matter about that."

"But think of giving up!" he cried, leaning toward her. "Even those who

believe nothing despise a renegade priest."

"That's of less consequence than that he should ruin his life and

despise himself."

He held out his uninjured hand impulsively.

"Berenice!" he whispered.

She flushed celestial red, and for an instant her eyes responded to the

love in his. Then she sprang to her feet, with a laugh.

"There!" she cried. "See what dunces we are to get to discussing

theology. I'll never forgive you if you try to inveigle me into another

talk about such subjects. Here is Mehitabel to say that she's ready to

help you with your packing."