Every morning Mrs Norton flung her black shawl over her shoulders,
rattled her keys, and scolded the servants at the end of the long
passage. Kitty, as she watered the flowers in the greenhouse, often
wondered why John had chosen to become a priest and grieve his mother.
Three times out of five when the women met at lunch, Mrs Norton said:
"Kitty, would you like to come out for a drive?"
Kitty answered, "I don't mind; just as you like, Mrs Norton."
After tea at five Kitty read for an hour, and in the evening she played
the piano; and she sometimes endeavoured to console her hostess by
suggesting that people did change their minds, and that John might not
become a priest after all. Mrs Norton looked at the girl, and it was
often on her lips to say, "If you had only flirted, if you had only paid
him some attentions, all might have been different." But heart-broken
though she was, Mrs Norton could not speak the words. The girl looked so
candid, so flowerlike in her guilelessness, that the thought seemed a
pollution. And in a few days Mr Hare sent for Kitty; and with her
departed the last ray of sunlight, and Thornby Place grew too sad and
solitary for Mrs Norton.
She went to visit some friends; she spent Christmas at the Rectory; and
in the long evenings when Kitty had gone to bed, she opened her heart
to her old friend. The last hope was gone; there was nothing for her to
look for now. John did not even write to her; she had not heard from him
since he left. It was very wrong of the Jesuits to encourage him in such
conduct, and she thought of laying the whole matter before the Pope. The
order had once been suppressed; she did not remember by what Pope; but
a Pope had grown tired of their intrigues, and had suppressed the order.
She made these accusations in moments of passion, and immediately after
came deep regret.... How wrong of her to speak ill of her religion, and
to a Protestant! If John did become a priest it would be a punishment
for her sins. But what was she saying? If John became a priest, she
should thank God for His great goodness. What greater honour could he
bestow upon her? Next day she took the train to Brighton, and went to
confession; and that very same evening she pleadingly suggested to Mr
Hare that he should go to Stanton College, and endeavour to persuade
John to return home. The parson was of course obliged to decline. He
advised her to leave the matter in the hands of God, and Mrs Norton went
to bed a prey to scruples of conscience of all kinds.
She even began to think it wrong to remain any longer in an essentially
Protestant atmosphere. But to return to Thornby Place alone was
impossible, and she begged for Kitty. The parson was loth to part with
his daughter, but he felt there was much suffering beneath the calm
exterior that Mrs Norton preserved. He could refuse her nothing, and he
let Kitty go.
"There is no reason why you should not come and dine with us every day;
but I shall not let you have her back for the next two months."
"What day will you come and see us, father dear?" said Kitty, leaning
out of the carriage window.
"On Thursday," cried the parson.
"Very well, we shall expect you," replied Mrs Norton; and with a sigh
she sank back on the cushions, and fell to thinking of her son.
At Thornby Place everything was soon discovered to be in a sad state of
neglect. There was much work to be done in the greenhouse, the azaleas
were being devoured by insects, and the leaves required a thorough
washing. It was easy to see that the cats had not been regularly fed,
and one of the tame rooks had flown away. Remedying these disasters,
Mrs Norton and Kitty hurried to and fro. There was a ball at Steyning,
and Mrs Norton consented to do the chaperon for once; and the girl's
dress was a subject of gossip for a month--for a fortnight an absorbing
occupation. Most of the people who had been at the hunt breakfast were
at the ball, and Kitty had plenty of partners. These suggested husbands
to Mrs Norton, and she questioned Kitty; but she did not seem to have
thought of the ball except in the light of a toy which she had been
allowed to play with one evening. The young men she had met there had
apparently interested her no more than if they had been girls, and she
regretted John only because of Mrs Norton. Every morning she ran to see
if there was a letter, so that it might be she who brought the good
news. But no letter came. Since Christmas John had written two short
notes, and now they were well on in April. But one morning as she stood
watching the springtide, Kitty saw him walking up the drive; the sky
was growing bright with blue, and the beds were catching flower beneath
the evergreen oaks. She ran to Mrs Norton, who was attending to the
canaries in the bow-window.
"Look, look, Mrs Norton, John is coming up the drive; it is he; look!"
"John!" said Mrs Norton, seeking for her glasses nervously; "yes, so it
is; let's run and meet him. But no; let's take him rather coolly. I
believe half his eccentricity is only put on because he wishes to
astonish us. We won't ask him any questions; we'll just wait and let him
tell his own story...."
"How do you do, mother?" said the young man, kissing Mrs Norton with
less reluctance than usual. "You must forgive me for not having answered
your letters. It really was not my fault; I have been passing through a
very terrible state of mind lately.... And how do you do, Kitty? Have
you been keeping my mother company ever since? It is very good in you;
I am afraid you must think me a very undutiful son. But what is the
news?"
"One of the rooks is gone."
"Is that all?... What about the ball at Steyning? I hear it was a great
success."
"Oh, it was delightful."
"You must tell me about it after dinner. Now I must go round to the
stables and tell Walls to take the trap round to the station to fetch my
things."
"Are you going to be here some time?" said Mrs Norton, assuming an
indifferent air.
"Yes, I think so; that is to say, for a couple of months--six weeks. I
have some arrangements to make, but I will speak to you about all that
after dinner."
With these words John left the room, and he left his mother agitated and
frightened.
"What can he mean by having arrangements to make?" she asked. Kitty
could of course suggest no explanation, and the women waited the
pleasure of the young man to speak his mind. He seemed, however, in
no hurry to do so; and the manner in which he avoided the subject
aggravated his mother's uneasiness. At last she said, unable to bear the
suspense any longer:
"Are you going to be a priest, John, dear?"
"Of course, but not a Jesuit...."
"And why? have you had a quarrel with the Jesuits?"
"Oh, no; never mind; I don't like to talk about it; not exactly a
quarrel, but I have seen a great deal of them lately, and I have found
them out. I don't mean in anything wrong, but the order is so entirely
opposed to the monastic spirit. It is difficult to explain; I really
can't.... What I mean is ... well, that their worldliness is repugnant to
me--fashionable friends, confidences, meddling in family affairs, dining
out, letters from ladies who need consolation.... I don't mean anything
wrong; pray don't misunderstand me. I merely mean to say that I hate
their meddling in family affairs. Their confessional is a kind of
marriage bureau; they have always got some plan on for marrying this
person to that, and I must say I hate all that sort of thing.... If I
were a priest I would disdain to ... but perhaps I am wrong to speak like
that. Yes, it is very wrong of me, and before ... Kitty, you must not
think I am speaking against the principles of my religion, I am only
speaking of matters of--"
"And have you given up your rooms in Stanton College?"
"Not yet; that is to say, nothing is settled definitely, but I do not
think I shall go back there; at least not to live."
"And you still are determined on becoming a priest?"
"Certainly, but not a Jesuit."
"What then?"
"A Carmelite. I have seen a great deal of these monks lately, and it is
only they who preserve some of the old spirit of the old ideal. To enter
the Carmelite Chapel in Kensington is to step out of the mean
atmosphere of to-day into the lofty charm of the Middle Ages. The long
straight folds of habits falling over sandalled feet, the great rosaries
hanging down from the girdles, the smell of burning wax, the large
tonsures, the music of the choir; I know nothing like it. Last Sunday I
heard them sing St Fortunatus' hymn,... the _Vexilla regis_ heard in the
cloud of incense, and the wrath of the organ!... splendid are the rhymes!
the first stanza in U and O, the second in A, and the third in E;
passing over the closed vowels, the hymn ascends the scale of sound--"
"Now, John, none of that nonsense; how dare you, sir? Don't attempt to
laugh at your mother."
"My dear mother, you must not think I am sneering because I speak of
what is uppermost in my mind. I have determined to become a Carmelite
monk, and that is why I came down here."
Mrs Norton was very angry; her temper fumed, and she would have burst
into violent words had not the last words, "and that is why I came down
here," frightened her into calmness.
"What do you mean?" she said, turning round in her chair. "You came down
here to become a Carmelite monk; what do you mean?"
John hesitated. He was clearly a little frightened, but having gone so
far he felt he must proceed. Besides, to-day, or to-morrow, sooner or
later the truth would have to be told. He said:
"I intend altering the house a little here and there; you know how
repugnant this mock Italian architecture is to my feelings.... I am
coming to live here with some monks--"
"You must be mad, sir; you mean to say that you intend to pull down the
house of your ancestors and turn it into a monastery?"
John drew a breath of relief, the worst was over now; she had spoken the
fulness of his thought. Yes, he was going to turn Thornby Place into a
monastery.
"Yes," he said, "if you like to put it in that way. Yes, I am going to
turn Thornby Place into a monastery. Why shouldn't I? I am resolved
never to marry; and I have no one except those dreadful cousins to leave
the place to. Why shouldn't I turn it into a monastery and become a
monk? I wish to save my soul."
Mrs Norton groaned.
"But you make me say more than I mean. To turn the place into a Gothic
monastery, such a monastery as I dreamed would not be possible, unless
indeed I pulled the whole place down, and I have not sufficient money to
do that, and I do not wish to mortgage the property. For the present I
am determined only on a few alterations. I have them all in my head. The
billiard room, that addition of yours, can be turned into a chapel. And
the casements of the dreadful bow-window might be removed, and mullions
and tracery fixed on, and, instead of the present flat roof, a sloping
tiled roof might be carried up against the wall of the house. The
cloisters would come at the back of the chapel."
John stopped aghast at the sorrow he was causing, and he looked at his
mother. She did not speak. Her ears were full of merciless ruins; hope
vanished in the white dust; and the house with its memories sacred and
sweet fell pitilessly: beams lying this way and that, the piece of
exposed wall with the well-known wall paper, the crashing of slates. How
they fall! John's heart was rent with grief, but he could not stay his
determination any more than his breath. Youth is a season of suffering,
we cannot surrender our desire, and it lies heavy and burning on our
hearts. It is so easy for age, so hard for youth to make sacrifices.
Youth is and must be wholly, madly selfish; it is not until we have
learnt the folly of our aims that we may forget them, that we may pity
the sufferings of others, that we may rejoice in the triumphs of our
friends. To the superficial therefore, John Norton will appear but the
incarnation of egotism and priggishness, but those who see deeper will
have recognised that he is one who has suffered bitterly, as bitterly
as the outcast who lies dead in his rags beneath the light of the
policeman's lantern. Mental and physical wants!--he who may know one may
not know the other: is not the absence of one the reason of the other?
Mental and physical wants! the two planes of suffering whence the great
divisions of mankind view and envy the other's destinies, as we view a
passing pageant, as those who stand on the decks of crossing ships gaze
regretfully back.
Those who have suffered much physical want will never understand John
Norton; he will find commiseration only from those who have realised _à
priori_ the worthlessness of existence, the vileness of life; above all,
from those who, conscious of a sense of life's degradation, impetuously
desire their ideal--the immeasurable ideal which lies before them,
clear, heavenly, and crystalline; the sea into which they would plunge
their souls, but in whose benedictive waters they may only dip their
fingertips, and crossing themselves, pass up the aisle of human
tribulation. We suffer in proportion to our passions. But John Norton
had no passion, say they who see passion only in carnal dissipation. Yet
the passions of the spirit are more terrible than those of the flesh;
the passion for God, the passion of revolt against the humbleness of
life; and there is no peace until passion of whatever kind has wailed
itself out.
Foolish are they who describe youth as a time of happiness; it is one of
fever and anguish.
Beneath its apparent calm, there was never a stormier youth than John's.
The boy's heart that grieves to death for a chorus-girl, the little
clerk who mourns to madness for the bright life that flashes from the
point of sight of his high office stool, never felt more keenly the
nervous pain of desire and the lassitudes of resistance. You think John
Norton did not suffer in his imperious desire to pull down the home of
his fathers and build a monastery! Mrs Norton's grief was his grief, but
to stem the impulse that bore him along was too keen a pain to be
endured. His desire whelmed him like a wave; it filled his soul like a
perfume, and against his will it rose to his lips in words. Even when
the servants were present he could not help discussing the architectural
changes he had determined upon, and as the vision of the cloister, with
its reading and chanting monks, rose to his head, he talked, blinded by
strange enthusiasm, of latticed windows, and sandals.
His mother bit her thin lips, and her face tightened in an expression of
settled grief. Kitty was sorry for Mrs Norton, but Kitty was too young
to understand, and her sorrow evaporated in laughter. She listened to
John's explanations of the future as to a fairy tale suddenly touched
with the magic of realism. That the old could not exist in conjunction
with the new order of things never grew into the painful precision of
thought in her mind. She saw but the show side; she listened as to an
account of private theatricals, and in spite of Mrs Norton's visible
grief, she was amused when John described himself walking at the head
of his monks with tonsured head and a great rosary hanging from a
leather girdle. Her innocent gaiety attracted her to him. As they walked
about the grounds after breakfast, he spoke to her about pictures and
statues, of a trip he intended to take to Italy and Spain, and he did
not seem to care to be reminded that this jarred with his project for
immediate realisation of Thornby Priory.
Leaning their backs against the iron railing which divided the green
sward from the park, John and Kitty looked at the house.
"From this view it really is not so bad, though the urns and the loggia
are so intolerably out of keeping with the landscape. But when I have
made my alterations it will harmonise with the downs and the
flat-flowing country, so English with its barns and cottages and rich
agriculture, and there will be then a charming recollection of old
England, the England of the monastic ages, before the--but I forgot, I
must not speak to you on that subject."
"Do you think the house will look prettier than it does now? Mrs Norton
says that it will be impossible to alter Italian architecture into
Gothic.... Of course I don't understand."
"Mother does not know what she is talking about. I have it all down in
my pocket-book. I have various plans.... I admit it is not easy, but
last night I fancy I hit on an idea. I shall of course consult an
architect, although really I don't see there is any necessity for so
doing, but just to be on the safe side; for in architecture there are
many practical difficulties, and to be on the safe side I will consult
an experienced man regarding the practical working out of my design. I
made this drawing last night." John produced a large pocket-book.
"But, oh, how pretty; will it be really like that?"
"Yes," exclaimed John, delighted; "it will be exactly like that; but I
will read you my notes, and then you will understand it better.
"_Alter and add to the front to represent the façade of a small
cathedral. This can be done by building out a projection the entire
width of the building, and one storey in height. This will be divided
into three arched divisions, topped with small gables_."
"What are gables, John?"
"Those are the gables. _The centre one (forming entrance) being rather
higher than the other gables. The entrance would be formed with
clustered columns and richly moulded pointed arches, the door being
solid, heavy oak, with large scroll and hammered iron hinges_.
"_The centre front and back would be carried up to form steep gables,
the roof being heightened to match. The large gable in front to have a
large cross at apex_."
"What is an apex? What words you do use."
John explained, Kitty laughed.
"The top I have indicated in the drawing. _And to have a rose window_.
You see the rose window in the drawing," said John, anticipating the
question which was on Kitty's lips.
"Yes," said she, "but why don't you say a round window?"
Without answering John continued:
"_The first floor fronts would be arcaded round with small columns with
carved capitals and pointed arches.
"At either corner of front, in lieu of present Ionic columns, carry up
octagonal turrets with pinnacles at top_.
"You see them in the drawing. These are the octagonal turrets."
"And which are the pinnacles?"
"The ornaments at the top.
"_From the centre of the roof carry up a square tower with battlemented
parapets and pinnacles at all corners, and flying buttresses from the
turrets of the main buildings_.
"_The bow window at side will have the old casements removed, and have
mullions and tracery fixed and filled with cathedral glazings, and,
instead of the present flat, a sloping roof will be carried up and
finished against the outer wall of the house. At either side of bay
window buttresses with moulded water-tables, plinths, &c._
"_From these roofs and the front projections at intersection of small
gables, carved gargoyles to carry off water_.
"_The billiard-room to be converted into a chapel, by building a new
high-pitched roof_."
"Oh, John, why should you do away with the billiard-room; why shouldn't
the monks play billiards? You played billiards on the day of the meet."
"Yes, but I am not a monk yet. No one ever heard of monks playing
billiards; besides, that dreadful addition of my mother's could not
remain in its present form, it would be ludicrous to a degree, whereas
it can be converted very easily into a chapel. We must have a
chapel--_building a high-pitched timber roof, throwing out an apse at
the end, and putting in mullioned and traceried windows filled with
stained glass_."
"And the cloister you are always speaking about, where will that be?"
"The cloister will come at the back of the chapel, and an arched and
vaulted ambulatory will be laid round the house. Later on I shall add a
refectory, and put a lavatory at one end of the ambulatory."
"But don't you think, John, you may get tired of being a monk, and then
the house will have to be built back again."
"Never, the house will be from every point of view, a better house when
my alterations are carried into effect. Beside, why should I be tired of
being a monk? Your father does not get tired of being a parson."
This reply, although singularly unconvincing, was difficult to answer,
and the conversation fell. And day by day, John's schemes strengthened
and took shape, and he seemed to look upon himself already as a
Carmelite. He had even gone so far as to order a habit, it had arrived
a few days ago; and an architect, too, had come down from London. He
was the ray of hope in Mrs Norton's life. For although he had loudly
commended the artistic taste exhibited in the drawing, and expressed
great wonderment at John's architectural skill, he had, nevertheless,
when questioned as to their practicability, declared the scheme to be
wholly impossible. And the reasons he advanced in support of his
opinions were so conclusive that John was fain to beg of him to draw up
a more possible plan for the conversion of an Italian house into a
Gothic monastery.
Mr ---- seemed to think the idea a wild one, but he promised to see what
could be done to overcome the difficulties he foresaw, and in a week
he forwarded John several drawings for his consideration. Judged by
comparison with John's dreams, the practical architecture of the
experienced man seemed altogether lacking in expression and in poetry
of proportion; and comparing them with his own cherished project, John
hung over the billiard-table, where the drawings were laid out, hour
after hour, only to rise more bitterly fretful, more utterly unable than
usual to reconcile himself to natural limitation, more hopelessly
longing for the unattainable.
He could think of nothing but his monastery; his Latin authors were
forgotten; he drew façades and turrets on the cloth during dinner, and
he went up to his room, not to bed, but to reconsider the difficulties
that rendered the construction of a central tower an impossibility.
Midnight: the house seems alive in the silence: night is on the world.
The twilight sheds on the walking birds, on the falling petals, and in
the rich shadow the candle burns brightly. The great bridal bed yawns,
the lace pillows lie wide, the curtains hang dreamily in the hallowed
light. John leans over his drawings. Once again he takes up the
architect's notes.
"_The interior would be so constructed as to make it impossible to
carry up the central tower. The outer walls would not be strong enough
to take the large gables and roof. Although the chapel could be done
easily, the ambulatory would be of no use, as it would lead probably
from the kitchen offices._
"_Would have to reduce work on front façade to putting in new arched
entrance. Buttresses would take the place of columns_.
"_The bow-window could remain_.
"_The roof to be heightened somewhat. The front projection would throw
the front rooms into almost total darkness_."
"But why not a light timber lantern tower?" thought John. "Yes, that
would get over the difficulty. Now if we could only manage to keep my
front ... if my design for the front cannot be preserved, I might as well
abandon the whole thing! And then?"
And then life seemed to him void of meaning and light. He might as well
settle down and marry....
His face contracted in an expression of anger. He rose from the table,
and he looked round the room. Its appearance was singularly jarring,
shattering as it did his dream of the cloister, and up-building in fancy
the horrid fabric of marriage and domesticity. The room seemed to him a
symbol--with the great bed, voluptuous, the corpulent arm-chair, the
toilet-table shapeless with muslin--of the hideous laws of the world
and the flesh, ever at variance and at war, and ever defeating the
indomitable aspirations of the soul. John ordered his room to be
changed; and, in the face of much opposition from his mother, who
declared that he would never be able to sleep there, and would lose his
health, he selected a narrow room at the end of the passage. He would
have no carpet. He placed a small iron bed against the wall; two plain
chairs, a screen to keep off the draught from the door, a basin-stand
such as you might find in a ship's cabin, and a prie-dieu, were all the
furniture he permitted himself.
"Oh, what a relief!" he murmured. "Now there is line, there is definite
shape. That formless upholstery frets my eye as false notes grate on my
ear;" and, becoming suddenly conscious of the presence of God, he fell
on his knees and prayed. He prayed that he might be guided aright in his
undertaking, and that, if it were conducive to the greater honour and
glory of God, he might be permitted to found a monastery, and that he
might be given strength to surmount all difficulties.
Next morning, calm in mind, and happier, he went downstairs to the
drawing-room, a small book in his hand, an historical work of great
importance by the Venerable Bede, intitled _Vita beatorum abbatum
Wiremuthensium, et Girvensiuem, Benedicti Ceolfridi, Easteriwini,
Sigfridi atque Hoetberti_. But he could not keep his attention fixed on
the book, it appeared to him dreary and stupid. His thoughts wandered.
He thought of Kitty--of how beautiful she looked on the background of
red geraniums, with the soft yellow cat on her shoulder, and he wondered
which of the four great painters, Manet, Degas, Monet, or Renoir would
have best rendered the brightness and lightness, the intense colour
vitality of that motive for a picture. He thought of her young eyes, of
the pale hands, of the sudden, sharp laugh; and finally he took up one
of her novels, "Red as a Rose is She." He read it, and found it very
entertaining.
But the evening post brought him a letter from the architect's head
clerk, saying that Mr ---- was ill, had not been to the office for the
last three or four days, and would not be able to go down to Sussex
again before the end of the month. Very much annoyed, John spent the
evening thinking whom he could consult on the practicability of his last
design for the front, and next, morning he was surprised at not seeing
Kitty at breakfast.
"Where is Kitty?" he asked abruptly.
"She is not feeling well; she has a headache, and will not be down
to-day."
At the end of a long silence, John said:
"I think I will go into Brighton.... I must really see an architect."
"Oh, John, dear, you are not really determined to pull the house down?"
"There is no use, mother dear, in our discussing that subject; each and
all of us must do the best we can with life. And the best we can do is
to try and gain heaven."
"Breaking your mother's heart, and making yourself ridiculous before the
whole county, is not the way to gain heaven."
"Oh, if you are going to talk like that...."
John went into the drawing-room to continue his reading, but the Latin
bored him even more than it had done yesterday. He took up the novel,
but its enchantment was gone, and it appeared to him in its tawdry,
original vulgarity. He got on a horse and rode towards the downs, and
went up the steep ascents at a gallop. He stood amid the gorse at the
top and viewed the great girdle of blue encircling sea, and the long
string of coast towns lying below him, and far away. Lunch was on the
table when he returned. After lunch, harassed by an obsession of
architectural plans, he went out to sketch. But it rained, and resisting
his mother's invitation to change his clothes, he sat down before the
fire, damp without, and feverishly irritable within. He vacillated an
hour between his translation of St Fortunatus' hymn, _Quem terra, pontus
aethera_, and "Red as a Rose is She," which, although he thought it as
reprehensible for moral as for literary reasons, he was fain to follow
out to the vulgar end. But he could interest himself in neither hymn nor
novel. For the authenticity of the former he now cared not a jot, and he
threw the book aside vowing that its hoydenish heroine was unbearable
and he would read no more.
"I never knew a more horrible place to live in than Sussex. Either of
two things: I must alter the architecture of this house, or I must
return to Stanton College."
"Don't talk nonsense, do you think I don't know you? you are boring
yourself because Kitty is upstairs in bed, and cannot walk about with
you."
"I do not know how you contrive, mother, always to say the most
disagreeable possible things; the marvellous way in which you pick out
what will, at the moment, wound me most is truly wonderful. I compliment
you on your skill, but I confess I am at a loss to understand why you
should, as if by right, expect me to remain here to serve continuously
as a target for the arrows of your scorn."
John walked out of the room. During dinner mother and son spoke very
little, and he retired early, about ten o'clock, to his room. He was in
high dudgeon, but the white walls, the prie-dieu, the straight, narrow
bed were pleasant to see. His room was the first agreeable impression
of the day. He picked up a drawing from the table, it seemed to him
awkward and slovenly. He sharpened his pencil, cleared his crow-quill
pens, got out his tracing-paper, and sat down to execute a better. But
he had not finished his outline sketch before he leaned back in his
chair, and as if overcome by the insidious warmth of the fire, lapsed
into fire-light attitudes and meditations.
He looked a little backwards into the blaze; he nibbled his pencil
point. Wavering light and wavering shade followed fast over the Roman
profile, followed and flowed fitfully--fitfully as his thoughts. Now his
thought followed out architectural dreams, and now he thought of
himself, of his unhappy youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of his
solitary life; a bitter, unsatisfactory life, and yet a life not wanting
in an ideal--a glorious ideal. He thought how his projects had always
met with failure, with disapproval, above all failure ... and yet, and
yet he felt, he almost knew there was something great and noble in him.
His eyes brightened; he slipped into thinking of schemes for a monastic
life; and then he thought of his mother's hard disposition and how she
misunderstood him,--everyone misunderstood him. What would the end be?
Would he succeed in creating the monastery he dreamed of so fondly? To
reconstruct the ascetic life of the Middle Ages, that would be something
worth doing, that would be a great ideal--that would make meaning in his
life. If he failed ... what should he do then? His life as it was, was
unbearable ... he must come to terms with life....
That central tower! how could he manage it! and that built-out front.
Was it true, as the architect said, that it would throw all the front
rooms into darkness? Without this front his design would be worthless.
What a difference it made!
Kitty liked it. She had thought it charming. How young she was, how
glad and how innocent, and how clever, her age being taken into
consideration. She understood all you said. It would not surprise him if
she developed into something: but she would marry....
But why was he thinking of her? What concern had she in his life? A
little slip of a girl--a girl--a girl more or less pretty, that was all.
And yet it was pleasant to hear her laugh. That low, sudden laugh--she
was pleasanter company than his mother, she was pleasant to have in the
house, she interrupted many an unpleasant scene. Then he remembered what
his mother had said. She had said that he was disappointed that she was
ill, that he had missed her, that ... that it was because she was not
there that he had found the day so intolerably wearisome.
Struck as with a dagger, the pain of the wound flowed through him
piercingly; and as a horse stops and stands trembling, for there is
something in the darkness beyond, John shrank back, his nerves
vibrating like highly-strung chords; and ideas--notes of regret and
lamentation died in great vague spaces. Ideas fell.... Was this all; was
this all he had struggled for; was he in love? A girl, a girl ... was a
girl to soil the ideal he had in view? No; he smiled painfully. The sea
of his thoughts grew calmer, the air grew dim and wan, a tall foundered
wreck rose pale and spectral, memories drifted. The long walks, the
talks of the monastery, the neighbours, the pet rooks, and Sammy the
great yellow cat, and the green-houses ... he remembered the pleasure he
had taken in those conversations!
What must all this lead to? To a coarse affection, to marriage, to
children, to general domesticity.
And contrasted with this....
The dignified and grave life of the cloister, the constant sensation of
lofty and elevating thought, a high ideal, the communion of learned men,
the charm of headship.
Could he abandon this? No, a thousand times no; but there was a melting
sweetness in the other cup. The anticipation filled his veins with
fever.
And trembling and pale with passion, John fell on his knees and prayed
for grace. But prayer was sour and thin upon his lips, and he could only
beg that the temptation might pass from him....
"In the morning," he said, "I shall be strong."