The chaplain of Martha's Vineyard had not been to the hospital ball.
Before it came off he had thought of it a good deal, and as often as he
remembered that he had protested to Glory against the company of Polly
Love he felt hot and ashamed. Polly was shallow and frivolous, and had a
little crab-apple of a heart, but he knew no harm of her. It was hardly
manly to make a dead set at the little thing because she was foolish and
fond of dress, and because she knew a man who displeased him.
Then she was Glory's only companion, and to protest against Glory going
in her company was to protest against Glory going at all. That seemed a
selfish thing to do. Why should he deny her the delights of the ball?
He could not go to it himself--he would not if he could; but girls liked
such things--they loved to dance, and to be looked at and admired, and
have men about them paying court and talking nonsense.
There was a sting in that thought, too; but he struggled to be
magnanimous. He was above all mean and unmanly feelings--he would
withdraw his objection.
He did not withdraw it. Some evil spirit whispered in his heart that
Glory was drifting away from him. This was the time to see for certain
whether she had passed out of the range of his influence. If she
respected his authority she would not go. If she went, he had lost his
hold of her, and their old relations were at an end.
On the night of the ball he walked over to the hospital and asked for
her. She had gone, and it seemed as if the earth itself had given way
beneath his feet.
He could not help feeling bitterly about Polly Love, and that caused
him to remember a patient to whom her selfish little heart had shown no
kindness. It was her brother. He was some nine or ten years older,
and very different in character. His face was pale and thin--almost
ascetic--and he had the fiery and watery eyes of the devotee. He had
broken a blood-vessel and was threatened with consumption, but his
case was not considered dangerous. When Polly was about, his eyes would
follow her round the ward with something of the humble entreaty of a
dog. It was clear that he loved his sister, and was constantly thinking
of her. But she hardly ever looked in his direction, and when she spoke
to him it was in a cold or fretful voice.
John Storm had observed this. It had brought him close to the young
man, and the starved and silent heart had opened out to him. He was a
lay-brother in an Anglican Brotherhood that was settled in Bishopsgate
Street. His monastic name was Brother Paul. He had asked to be sent to
that hospital because his sister was a nurse there. She was his only
remaining relative. One other sister he had once had, but she was
gone--she was dead--she died---- But that was a sad and terrible story;
he did not like to talk of it.
To this broken and bankrupt creature John Storm found his footsteps
turning on that night when his own heart lay waste. But on entering the
ward he saw that Brother Paul had a visitor already. He was an elderly
man in a strange habit--a black cassock which buttoned close at the neck
and fell nearly to his feet, and was girded about the waist by a black
rope that had three great knots at its suspended ends. And the habit
was not more different from the habit of the world than the face of the
wearer was unlike the worldly face. It was a face full of spirituality,
a face that seemed to invest everything it looked upon with a holy
peace--a beautiful face, without guile or craft or passion, yet not
without the signs of internal strife at the temples and under the eyes;
but the battles with self had all been fought and won.
As John Storm stepped up, the old man rose from his chair by the
patient's bed.
“This is the Father Superior, sir,” said Brother Paul.
“I've just been hearing of you,” said the Father in a gentle voice. “You
have been good to my poor brother.”
John Storm answered with some commonplace--it had been a pleasure,
a happiness; the brother would soon leave them; they would all miss
him--perhaps himself especially.
The Father resumed his chair and listened with an earnest smile. “I
understand you, dear friend,” he said. “It is so much more blessed to
give than to receive! Ah, if the poor blind world only knew! How it
fights for its pleasures that perish, and its pride of life that passes
away! Yet to succour a weaker brother, or protect a fallen woman, or
feed a little child will bring a greater joy than to conquer all the
kingdoms of the earth.”
John Storm sat down on the end of the bed. Something had gone out to
him in a moment, and he was held as by a spell. The Father talked of the
love of the world--how strange it was, how difficult to understand, how
tragic, how pitiful! The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye--how
mean, how delusive, how treacherous! To think of the people of that
mighty city day by day and night by night making themselves miserable in
order that they might make themselves merry; to think of the children
of men scouring the globe for its paltry possessions, that could not add
one inch to the stature of the soul, while all the time the empire of
peace and joy and happiness lay here at hand, here within ourselves,
here in the little narrow compass of the human heart! To give, not to
get, that was the great blessedness, and to give of yourself, of your
heart's love, was the greatest blessedness of all.
John Storm was stirred. “The Church, sir,” he said, “the Church itself
has to learn that lesson.”
And then he spoke of the hopes with which he had come up to London,
and how they were being broken down and destroyed; of his dreams of the
Church and its mission, and how they were dying or dead already.
“What liars we are, sir! How we colour things to justify ourselves! Look
at our sacraments--are they a lie, or are they a sacrilege? Look at
our charities--are we Pharisees or are we hypocrites? And our clergy,
sir--our fashionable clergy! Surely some tremendous upheaval will shake
to its foundations the Church wherein such things are possible--a Church
that is more worldly than the world! And then the woman-life of the
Church, see how it is thrown away. That sweetest and tenderest and
holiest power, how it goes to waste under the eye and with the sanction
of the Church in the frivolities of fashion--in drawing-rooms, in
gardens, in bazars, in theatres, in balls----”
He stopped. His last word had arrested him. Had he been thinking only
of himself and of Glory? His head fell and he covered his face with his
hand.
“You are right, my son,” said the Father quietly, “and yet you are
wrong, too. The Church of God will not be shaken to its foundations
because of the Pharisees who stand in its public places, or because
of the publicans who haunt its purlieus. Though the axe be laid to the
rotten tree, yet the little seed will save its kind alive.”
Then with an earnest smile and in a gentle voice he spoke of their
little brotherhood in Bishopsgate Street; how ten years ago they had
founded it for detachment from earthly cares and earthly aims, and for
hiddenness with God; how they had established it in the midst of the
world's, busiest highway, in the heart of the world's greatest market,
to show that they despised gold and silver and all that the blind and
cheated world most prizes, just as St. Philip and St. Ignatius had
established the severest of modern rules in a profane and self-indulgent
century, to show that they could stamp out every suggestion of the flesh
as a spark from the fires of hell.
And then he lifted his cord and pointed to the knots at the end of it,
and told what they were--symbols of the three bonds by which he was
bound--the three vows he had taken: the vow of poverty, because Christ
chose it for himself and his friends; the vow of obedience, because he
had said, “He that heareth you heareth Me”; and the vow of chastity,
because it was our duty to guard the gates of the senses, and to keep
our eyes and ears and tongue from all inordinateness.
“But the lawful love of home and kindred,” said John; “what of that?”
“We convert it into what is spiritual,” said the Father. “All human
love must be based on the love of God if it is to be firm and true
and enduring, and the reason of so much failure of love in natural
friendship is that the love of the creature is not built upon the love
of the Creator.”
“But the love--say of mother and son--of brother and sister?”
“Ah, we have placed ourselves above the ordinary conditions of life
that none may claim our affections in the same way as Christ. Man has
to contend with two sets of enemies--those from within and those from
without; and no temptations are more subtle than those which come in the
name of our holiest affections. But the sword of the spirit must keep
the tempter away. There is the Judas in all of us, and he will betray us
with a kiss if he can.”
John Storm's breast was heaving. He could scarcely conceal his
agitation; but the Father had risen to go.
“It is eight o'clock, and I must be back to Compline,” he said. And
then he laughed and added: “We never ride in cabs; but I must needs walk
across the park to-night, for I have given away all my money.”
At that the smile of an angel came into his old face, and lie said, with
a sweet simplicity:
“I love the park. Every morning the children play there, and then it is
the holy Catholic Church to me, and I like to walk in it and to lay my
hands on the heads of the little ones, and to ask a blessing for them,
and to empty my-self. This morning as I was coming here I met a little
boy carrying a bundle. 'And what is _your_ name, my little man?' I said,
and he told me what it was. 'And how old are you?' I asked. 'Twelve
years,' he answered. 'And what have you got in your bundle?' 'Father's
dinner, sir,' he said. 'And what is your father, my son?' 'A carpenter,'
said the boy. And I thought if I had been living in Palestine nineteen
hundred years ago I might have met another little Boy carrying the
dinner of his father, who was also a carpenter, in a little bundle which
Mary had made up for him. So I felt in my pocket, and all I had was my
fare home again, and I gave it to the little man as a thank-offering to
God that he had suffered me to meet a sweet boy of twelve whose father
was a carpenter.”
John Storm's eyes were dim with tears.
“Good-bye, Brother Paul, and God send you back to us soon!--Good-bye to
you, dear friend; and when the world deals harshly with you come to
us for a few days in Retreat, that in the silence of your soul you may
forget its vanities and vexations and fix your thoughts above.”
John Storm could not resist the impulse--he dropped to his knees at the
Father's feet.
“Bless me also, Father, as you blessed the carpenter's boy.”
The Father raised two fingers of his right hand and said:
“God bless you, my son, and be with you and strengthen you, and when he
smiles on you may the frown of man affect you not!--Father in heaven,
look down on this fiery soul and succour him! Help him to cast off every
anchor that holds him to the world, and make him as a voice crying in
the wilderness, 'Come out of her, my people, saith our God.'”
When John rose from his knees the saintly face was gone, and all the air
seemed to be filled with a heavenly calm.
While he had been kneeling for the Father's blessing he had been
aware of a step on the floor behind him. It was his fellow-curate, the
Reverend Golightly, who was still waiting to deliver his message.
The canon had been disappointed in one of his preachers for Sunday, and
being himself engaged to preside over the annual dinner of a dramatic
benevolent fund to be held on the Saturday night, and therefore
incapable of extra preparation, he desired that Mr. Storm should take
the sermon on Sunday morning.
John promised to do so; and then his fellow-curate smiled, bowed,
coughed, and left him. A small room was kept for the chaplain on the
ground floor of the hospital, and he went down to it and wrote a letter.
It was to the parson at Peel.
“No doubt you hear from Glory frequently, and know all about her
progress as a probationer. She seems to be very well, and certainly I
have never seen her look so bright and so cheerful. At the moment of
writing she is out at a ball given by some of the hospital authorities.
Well, it is a perfectly harmless source of pleasure, and with all my
heart I hope she is enjoying herself. No doubt some form of amusement
is necessary to a young girl in the height of her youth and health
and beauty, and he would be only a poor sapless man who could not take
delight in the thought that a good girl was happy. Her fellow-nurses,
too, are noble and devoted women, doing true woman's work, and if there
are some black sheep among them, that is no more than might be expected
of the purest profession in the world.
“As for myself, I have tried to carry out-my undertaking to look after
Glory, but I can not say how long I may be able to continue the task.
Do not be surprised if I am compelled to give it up. You know I am
dissatisfied with my present surroundings, and I am only waiting for the
ruling and direction of the pillar of cloud and fire. God alone can tell
how it will move, but God will guide me. I don't go out more than I can
help, and when I do go I get humiliated and feel foolish. The life of
London has been a great and painful surprise. I had supposed that I knew
all about it, but I have really known nothing until now. Its cruelty,
its deceit, and its treachery are terrible. London is the Judas that
is forever betraying with a kiss the young, the hopeful, the innocent.
However, it helps one to know one's self, and that is better than
lying wrapped in cotton wool. Give my kindest greetings to everybody at
Glenfaba--my love to my father, too, if there are any means of conveying
it.”
The letter took him long to write, and when it was written he went out
into the hall to post it. There he saw that a thunderstorm was coming,
and he concluded to remain until it had passed over. He stepped into the
library and selected a book, and returned to his room to read it. The
book was St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood, and the subject was
congenial, but he could not keep his mind on the printed page:
He thought of the Father Superior, of the little brotherhood in
Bishopsgate, and then of Glory at the hospital ball, and again of Glory,
and yet again and again of Glory. Do what he would, he could not help
but think of her.
The storm pealed over his head, and when he returned to the hall two
hours later it was still far from spent. He stood at the open door and
watched it. Forks of lightning lit up the park, and floods of black rain
made the vacant pavements like the surface of the sea. A tinkling cab
slid past at intervals, with its driver sheeted in oilskins, and now and
then there was an omnibus, full within and empty without. Only one other
living thing was to be seen anywhere. An Italian organ-man had stationed
himself in front of a mansion to the left and was playing vigorously.
John Storm walked through the hospital. It was now late, and the house
was quiet. The house-doctor had made the last of his rounds and turned
into his chambers across the courtyard, and the night-nurses were
boiling little kettles in their rooms between the wards. The surgical
wards were darkened, and the patients were asleep already. In the
medical wards there were screens about certain of the beds, and weary
moans came from behind them.
It was after midnight when John Storm came round to the hall again, and
then the rain had ceased, but the thunder was still rumbling. He might
have gone home at length, but he did not go; he realized that he was
waiting for Glory. Other nurses returned from the ball, and bowed to him
and passed into the house. He stepped into the porter's lodge, and sat
down and watched the lightning. It began to be terrible to him, because
it seemed to be symbolical. What doom or what disaster did this storm
typify and predict? Never could he forget the night on which it befell.
It was the night of the Nurses' Ball.
He thought he must have slept, for he shook himself and thought: “What
nonsense! Surely the soul leaves the body while we are asleep, and only
the animal remains!”
It was now almost daylight, and two hansom-cabs had stopped before
the portico, and several persons who were coming up the steps were
chattering away like wakened linnets. One voice was saying:
“Mr. Drake proposes that we should all go to the theatre, and if we can
get a late pass I should like it above everything.” It was Glory, and a
fretful voice answered her:
“Very well, if _you_ say so. It's all the same to _me_.” It was Polly;
and then a man's voice said:
“What night shall it be, then, Robert?”
And a second man's voice answered, with a drawl, “Better let the girls
choose for themselves, don't you know.”
John Storm felt his hands and feet grow cold, and he stepped out into
the porch. Glory saw him coming and made a faint cry of recognition.
“Ah, here is Mr. Storm! Mr. Storm, you should know Mr. Drake. He was in
the Isle of Man, you remember----”
“I do _not_ remember,” said John Storm.
“But you saved his life, and you ought to know him----”
“I do _not_ know him,” said John Storm.
She was beginning to say, “Let me introduce----” But she stopped
and stood silent for a moment, while the strange light came into her
gleaming eyes of something no word could express, and then she burst
into noisy laughter.
A superintendent Sister going through the hall at the moment drew up and
said, “Nurse, I am surprised at you! Go to your rooms this instant!” and
the girls whispered their adieus and went off giggling.
“What a glorious night it has been!” said Glory, going upstairs.
“I'm glad you think so,” said Polly. “To tell you the truth, I found it
dreadfully tiresome.”
The two men lit their cigarettes and got back into one of the hansoms
and drove away.
“What a bear that man is!” said Lord Robert.
“Rude enough, certainly,” said Drake; “but I liked his face for all
that; and if the Fates put it into his head to stand between me and
death--well, I'm not going to forget it.”
“Give him a wide berth, dear boy. The fellow is an actor--an affected
fop. I met him at Mrs. Macrae's on Thursday. He is a religious actor and
a poseur. He'll do something one of these days, take my word for it.”
And meanwhile John Storm had buttoned his long coat up to his throat and
was striding home through the echoing streets, with both hands clinched
and his teeth set hard.