THE REPARATION OF JANE PRITCHETT, EX-PROTESTANT
On the following morning, Blantyre went away. He was absent from Hornham
for two days, and it was understood that he had gone to visit Lord
Huddersfield. Hamlyn and his doings were not in any way mentioned by the
two other clergy.
The days of his absence were a time of great unrest and mental debate
for Lucy.
She was at a crisis in her life. She had definitely come to a moment
when she must choose between one thing or another. It is a commonplace
of some preachers to say that this moment of definite choice comes to
every one at least once in their lives. But the truth of the assertion
is at least doubtful. Many people are spared the pain of what is more or
less an instantaneous decision. They merge themselves gradually, in this
or that direction, the right or the wrong. And they are the more
fortunate.
For Lucy, however, the tide was at the flood. She must push out upon it
and hoist her sail, but whether she should go east or west, run before
the wind or beat up into the heart of it--that she must now decide.
She had no illusions about her position. To marry James Poyntz meant one
thing, to refuse him meant another. In the first place, she wanted to be
married. Physically, socially, mentally, she was perfectly aware that
she would be happier. Her nature needed the complement of a husband. She
was pure, but not virginal, in temperament. She put it to herself
that--as she believed--she had a talent for wifehood.
Here was a young man who satisfied all her instincts of what was fitting
in a man she could marry. She did not love him, but she admired, liked,
and respected him. Something of the not unhealthy cynicism--the sane
cynicism--of a woman of the world had entered into her. She wasn't a
sentimentalist, she didn't think that the "love" of the poet and
story-teller was the only thing in the relation of a wife to a husband.
She had seen many marriages, she had watched the firm, strong affection
that came after marriage, and she saw that it was a good, worthy, and
constant thing.
She had been much in France. Lady Linquest had friends and relatives
among the stately families of the Faubourg St. Germain. Those weddings
in France that were decorously arranged by papa and mamma, how did they
turn out? On the whole well enough, happily enough. It was only the
ignorant lower middle-class of England that thought France was a mighty
_lupanar_ and adultery a joke.
And in marrying Poyntz she would marry a man whom she was worthy of
intellectually. He would satisfy every instinct she possessed--_every
instinct but one_.
And here, she knew, here lay the root of the whole question.
The very strongest influence that can direct and urge any soul towards a
holy life is the society and companionship, even the distant
contemplation, of a saintly man or woman.
The force of example acts as a lens. It focuses all the impulses towards
good and concentrates them. In making clear the beauty of holiness, it
shows that it is not a vague beauty, but an ideal which may be realised
by the observer.
Lucy had been living with saintly folk. Bernard was saintly--if ever a
man was; the bulldog, King, was a saint and walked with God. Stephens
was a schoolboy, full of slang and enthusiasm, blunders and love of
humanity, but he was saintly too. Miss Cass, the housekeeper with the
face of a horse, who called "day" "dy" and the Mass "Mess," she was a
holy woman. Before the ugly, unlettered spinster, the society girl, with
all her power and charm, had learned to bow in her mind.
That was Lucy's great virtue. She was frank with herself. She glossed
over nothing, she pretended nothing. It is the person who postures and
poses before himself who is in the chiefest danger. And Carr, well, Carr
was a saintly man also. He hadn't got the more picturesque trimmings
that the others had. His spiritual life was not so vividly expressed in,
and witnessed to, by his clothes and daily habit of life. But he was a
saintly man. As she thought of him Lucy thought of him as man _and_
saint.
All these people lived for one thing, had one aim, believed one thing.
They lived to serve our Lord, to do His work, to adore Him.
Why, even Bob, the navvy, whom Father King had knocked down as a beery
blackguard and set up again as a butler, even Bob was feeling a slow
and ponderous way towards sainthood! He could not boast a first-rate
intelligence, but, he _loved_ our Lord.
Yes!--ah, that was the most beautiful thing of all. To _love_ Him.
"Do I _love_ Him?" Lucy asked herself during those two days.
And the answer that came to her was a very strange one. It was this. She
loved our Lord, but she could not make up her mind to give up everything
earthly and material for Him. She wanted a compromise.
In fact, she was near the gates of the spiritual life, but she had not
entered them.
She did not disguise one fact from herself. If she married Poyntz she
would immediately be withdrawn, and withdrawn for ever, from the new
influences which were beginning to permeate her, to draw her towards the
state of a Christian who is vowed and militant.
She knew the influence that as her husband James would have. His ideals
were noble and high, his life was pure and worthy. But it was not the
life that Christ had made so plain and clear. The path the Church showed
was not the path James would follow, or one which as his wife she could
well follow.
She believed sincerely, as her brother himself would have told her, that
a man like Poyntz was only uneducated in spiritual things, not lost to
them for ever.
But she was also sure that he would make no spiritual discoveries in
this world.
Marriage with him meant going back. It meant turning away from the
Light.
The struggle with the training of years, the earthly ideals of nearly
all her life, was acute. But hour by hour, she began to draw nearer and
nearer to the inevitable solution.
Now and again, she went into the silent church. Then, kneeling before
the Blessed Sacrament, she saw the path quite clear.
Afterwards, back in her room again, the voices of the material world
were heard. But they became weaker and more weak as the hours went on.
On the day that Bernard was to return, she received a long and
passionate letter from her lover.
He had the wonderful gift of prose. He understood, as hardly any of us
understand, how to treat words (on certain occasions of using them) as
if they were almost notes in some musical composition. His letter was
beautiful.
She read it page by page, with a heart that had begun to beat with
quickened interest, until she came to a passage which jarred and hurt.
James had made an end of his most impassioned and intimate passages, and
was making his keen satiric comment upon general affairs--quite as he
had done in his letters before his actual avowal.
"I saw my father to-day in St. James, and we went to his club and
lunched together. I respect him more and more, for his consistency,
every time I meet him. And I wonder more and more at his childishness at
the same time. It seems he had just left your brother. As you are in the
thick of all the mumbo-jumbo, perhaps you will have heard of the
business that seems to be agitating my poor dear sire into a fever. It
seems that, a day or two ago, an opposition hero who has consecrated his
life to the Protestant cause--none other than the notorious Hamlyn
himself--purloined a consecrated wafer from some church and has been
exhibiting it at public meetings to show that it is just as it ever
was--a pinch of flour and no more. My father has made himself utterly
miserable over the proceedings of this merry-andrew. As you know, I take
but little interest in the squabbles of the creeds, but the spectacle
of a sane and able man caught up in the centre of these phantasies makes
me pause and makes my contempt sweeten into pity."
As Lucy read the letter, she thought of the scene on the night when Carr
had brought the news. She thought of her own quick pain as she heard it,
of how her brother was struck down as with a sword. And especially there
came to her the vision of the two priests, King and Stephens, praying
all night long before the Host.
She pushed the letter away from her, nor did she read it again. It
seemed alien, out of tune with her life.
She went into the church to pray.
When she came away, her resolution was nearly taken.
Bernard came home about three in the afternoon. His manner was quiet. He
was sad, but he seemed relieved also.
Lucy was walking in the garden with him, soon after his return, when
Stephens and Dr. Hibbert came down from the house and walked quickly up
to them.
"Vicar," the doctor said, "Miss Pritchett is dying."
Blantyre started. "Oh, I didn't know it was as bad as that," he said.
"Is it imminent?"
"A matter of twenty hours I should say," the doctor replied; "I bring
you a message from her."
Blantyre's face lighted up. Great tenderness came over it as he heard
that the woman who had injured him and sought to harm the Church had
sent him a message.
"Poor woman," he said; "what is it--God bless her!"
"She has asked for you and the other clergy to come to her. She wishes
me to bring you and such other members of the congregation as will come.
She wishes to make a profession of Faith."
"But when, how--" the vicar asked, bewildered.
The doctor explained. "The Hamlyns are with her; she is frightened by
them, but not only that, she bitterly repents what she has done. Poor
soul! Blantyre, she is very penitent, she remembers the Faith. She
asks--" He drew the vicar aside. Lucy could hear no more. But she saw
deep sympathy come out upon her brother's face.
The three men--Stephens had remained with the doctor--came near her
again.
"My motor is outside," the doctor said hurriedly.
"How long would it take?" asked the vicar.
"----if the Bishop is in--back in an hour and a half----"
The vicar took Stephens aside and spoke earnestly with him for a few
moments. The young man listened gravely and then hurried away. Before
the vicar and the doctor joined Lucy again--they stood in private talk a
moment--she heard the "toot" of the motor-car hum on the other side of
the garden wall.
Wondering what all this might mean, she was about to cross the lawn
towards the two men, when she saw Father King and Mr. Carr coming out of
the house. These two joined the vicar and Dr. Hibbert. The four men
stood in a ring. Blantyre seemed to be explaining something to the
new-comers. Now and then the doctor broke in with a burst of rapid
explanation.
Lucy began to be full of wonder. She felt ignored, she tried not to feel
that. Something was afoot that she did not quite understand.
In the middle of her wonder the men came towards her.
Bernard took her arm. "Mavourneen," he said, "will you come with us to
poor Miss Pritchett? She's been asking if you'll come and forgive her
and part good friends. She may die to-night, the doctor says. You'll
come?"
"Of course I'll come, dear."
"She has repented of her hostility to the Church, and desires to make a
public statement of her faith before she dies. And she has asked for the
Sacrament of Unction.... Stephens has gone to the Bishop of Stepney on
the doctor's motor-car. In an hour we will go to Malakoff."
The doctor took King by the arm and led him away. They talked earnestly
together.
Blantyre turned to Carr.
"Will ye come with us all to the poor soul's bedside?" he asked.
"Yes," Carr answered. "I don't know what you purpose exactly--and I
don't care! I trust you as a brother now, Blantyre, I am learning every
day. I'm a conservative, you know, new things are distasteful to me. But
I am learning that there are medicines, _pro salute animæ_."
"New things!" Blantyre said; "ye're an old Protestant at heart still.
Did they teach ye _no_ history at Cambridge except that the Church of
England began at the Reformation? Now, listen while I tell you what the
service is. You remember St. James v. 14, 15?"
Carr nodded. He began to quote from memory, for his knowledge of the
Scriptures was profound, a knowledge even more accurate and full than
perhaps any of the three priests of St. Elwyn's could claim, though they
were scholars and students one and all.
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and
let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of our Lord;
and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise
him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
"Well, I suppose that is fairly explicit?" Blantyre said. "Mr. Hamlyn
would tell us that Unction is a conjuring trick invented by the Jesuits.
And you have always thought it Popish and superstitious. Now, haven't
you, Carr, be honest!"
"Yes."
"Well, you will see the service to-day. We follow the ancient order of
the Church of England. Why did you object, Carr? I'd like to get at
your mental attitude. What is there unscriptural, bad, or unseemly about
Unction? Here's a poor woman who has strayed from the fold. She wishes
to die at peace with every one, she wishes that the inward unction of
the Holy Spirit may be poured into the wounds of her soul, she wants to
be forgiven for the sake of our Lord's most meritorious Cross and
Passion! If it is God's will, she may be cured."
He spoke with great fervour and earnestness.
Carr bowed his head and thought. "Yes," he said, "I have been very
prejudiced and hard, sometimes. It is so easy to condemn what one does
not know about, so hard to have sympathy with what one has not
appreciated."
Blantyre caught him by the arm and they walked the lawn for a long time
in fraternal intercourse.
Lucy sat down with the doctor, but her eyes often turned to the tall,
grave figure, whose lengthening shadow sometimes reached to her feet and
touched them.
At last they heard the panting of the returning motor-car. Stephens had
arrived with the oil that the Bishop had blessed.
The whole party got into the car, which was a large one, and they set
off rapidly through the streets towards Malakoff House.
How strange it was, Lucy thought, this swift career of moderns in the
wonderful machine of their age, this rush to the bedside of a dying
woman with the last consolation of the Church! It was full of awe, but
full of sweetness also. It seemed to show--and how plainly--the divine
continuity of the Faith, the harmonic welding of the order and
traditions of our Lord's own time with the full vivid life of the
nineteenth century.
They were shown into the grim house. Truly the shadow of death seemed to
lie there, was exhaled from the massive funereal furniture of a bygone
generation, with all its faded pomp and circumstance.
The mistress of it all was going away from it for ever, would never hold
her tawdry court in that grim drawing-room any more.
Dr. Coxe, Hibbert's assistant, came down-stairs and met them.
"I have got the two Hamlyns out of the house at last," he whispered.
"They were distressing the patient greatly. I insisted, however. We had
a row on the stairs--fortunately, I don't think the patient could hear
it. I'm sorry, doctor, but I had to use a little physical persuasion to
the young one."
"Never mind, Coxe," Hibbert answered. "I'll see that nothing comes of
it. They won't dare to do anything. I will see to that. Is Miss
Pritchett ready? Can we go up?"
"Yes," the young man answered, looking curiously at the four priests and
the grave girl who was with them in her gay summer frock. "Miss Davies
is there."
He was a big, young Scotsman, with a profound contempt for religion, but
skilled and tender in his work, nevertheless.
"Will you come up?" Hibbert whispered, taking him a little apart from
the others.
"I'd rather be excused, old man," he answered. "Call me if I'm wanted. I
can't stand this mumbo-jumbo, you know!"
Hibbert nodded curtly. He understood the lad very well. "Will you follow
me, Father?" he said to Blantyre.
Blantyre put on his surplice and stole. Then they all went silently up
the wide stairs, with their soft carpet and carved balusters, into the
darkened chamber of death.
The dying woman was propped up by pillows. Her face was the colour of
grey linen, the fringes of hair she wore in health were gone.
A faint smile came to her lips. Then, as she saw Lucy, she called to her
in a clear, thin voice that seemed as if it came from very far away.
"Kiss me, my dear," she said; "forgive me."
Lucy kissed the old, wrinkled face tenderly. Her tears fell upon it in a
sacrament of forgiveness and holy amity.
"I want just to say to all of you," Miss Pritchett said, "that I have
been untrue to what I really believed, and I have helped the enemies of
the Faith. I never forgot your teaching, Father, I knew all the time I
was doing wrong. I ask all of you to forgive me as I believe Jesus has
forgiven me."
A murmur of kindliness came from them all.
"Then I can go in peace," she gasped. Then with a faint and pathetic
shadow of her old manner she turned to Gussie. "Hush!" she said. "Stop
sniffling, Miss Davies! I am very happy. Now, Father----"
Her eyes closed and her hands remained still. They saw all earthly
thoughts die out of the wrinkled old face, now turned wholly to God.
They all knelt save the vicar, who had placed the oil in an ampulla upon
a table.
Then he began the 71st Psalm. "In Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust, let
me never be put to confusion: but rid me, and deliver me, in Thy
righteousness, incline Thine ear unto me, and save me."
There was no sound in the chamber save that of the ancient Hebrew song.
"Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed: until I
have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to all them
that are yet for to come.
"Thy righteousness, O God, is very high: and great things are they that
Thou hast done; O God, who is like unto Thee?"
Then, all together, they said the antiphon: "_O Saviour of the world,
who by Thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, save us and help
us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord._"
The central figure in the huge four-post bed lay still and waxen. But
when the priest came up to it with the oil, the eyes opened and looked
steadfastly into his face.
He dipped his thumb into the silver vessel and made the sign of the
Cross on the eyes, the ears, the lips, the nostrils, and the hands,
saying each time as he did so:
"_Through this unction, and of His most tender mercy, may the Lord
pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed._"
The whispering words that brought renewal of lost innocence to the dying
woman sank into Lucy's heart, never to leave it. In the presence of
these wondrous mysteries, death, and death vanquished by Christ, sin
purged and forgiven in the Sacrament, her resolution was made. She knew
that she would fix her eyes upon the Cross, never to take them from it
more.
She saw her brother bending over the still figure, his white surplice
ghostlike in the gloom of the hangings, as he wiped the anointed parts
with wool.
Then Stephens brought him a basin of clear water and he washed his
hands.
Raising his arm, he said:
"_In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, may
this anointing with oil be to thee for the purification of thy mind and
body, and may it fortify and defend thee against the darts of evil
spirits._ Amen."
Two more prayers were said and then came the Blessing.
All rose from their knees. As Lucy slipped from the room, she saw the
doctor was bending over the waxen figure in the bed.
She heard her brother and his two assistant priests beginning other
prayers, in a louder voice, a sort of litany, it seemed.
She found Carr was beside her descending the stairs.
"What is that?" she whispered.
"The prayers for the commendation of a departing soul; she is going. God
rest her and give her peace."
"Amen," said Lucy.
They came down into the hall, where they stood for a moment quite alone.
Both were greatly agitated, both felt drawn together by some great
power.
"How beautiful it is!" Carr said at length. "Our Lord is with her. May
we all die so."
"Poor, dear woman!"
"In a few moments she will be in the supreme and ineffable glory of
Paradise. I want to see trees and flowers, to think happily of the
wonderful mercy and goodness of God among the things He has made. I
should like to walk in the park for an hour, to hear the birds and see
the children play. Will you come with me?"
"Yes, I will come."
He took her hand and bowed low over it.
"I have a great thing to ask of you," he said.
They walked soberly together until they came to the railed-in open
space. To each the air seemed thick with unspoken thoughts.
The park was a poor place enough. But flowers grew there, the grass was
green, it was not quite Hornham. They sat upon a bench and for a minute
or two both were silent. Lucy knew a serenity at this moment such as she
had hardly ever known. She was as some mariner who, at the close of a
long and tempestuous voyage, comes at even-tide towards harbour over a
still sea. The coastwise lights begin to glimmer, the haven is near.
In her mind and heart, at that moment, she was reconciled to and in tune
with all that is beautiful in human and Divine.
She sat there, this well-known society girl, who, all her life, had
lived with the great and wealthy of the world, in great content. In the
"park" of Hornham, with the poor clergyman, she knew supreme content.
In a low voice that shook with the intensity of his feeling and yet was
resolute and informed with strength, Carr asked Lucy to be his wife.
She gave him her hand very simply and happily. A river that had long
been weary had at last wound safe to sea. That she should be the wife of
this man was, she knew, one of the gladdest and most merciful ordinances
of God.