John Storm went back to Victoria Square with a bright and joyful face
and found Mrs. Callender waiting for him, grim as a judge. He could
see that her eyes were large and red with weeping, but she fell on him
instantly with withering scorn.
“So you're here at last, are ye? A pretty senseless thing this is, to
be sure! What are you dreaming about? Are you bewitched or what? Do you
suppose things can be broken off in this way? You to go to the leper
islands indeed!”
“I'm called, auntie, and when God calls a man, what can he do but answer
with Samuel----”
“Tut! Don't talk sic nonsense. Besides, Samuel had some sense. He waited
to be called three times, and I havena heard this is your third time of
calling.”
John Storm laughed, and that provoked her to towering indignation. “Good
God, what are you thinking of, man? There's that puir lassie--you're
running away from her, too, aren't you? It's shameful, it's disgraceful,
it's unprincipled, and _you_ to do it too!”
“You needn't trouble about that, auntie,” said John; “she is going with
me.”
“What?” cried Mrs. Callender, and her face expressed boundless
astonishment.
“Yes,” said John, “you women are brimful of courage, God bless you! and
she's the bravest of you all.”
“But you'll no have the assurance to tak' that puir bit lassie to yonder
God-forsaken spot?”
“She wants to go--at least she wants to leave London.”
“What does she? Weel, weel! But didn't I say she was nought but one of
your Sisters or sic-like?--And you're going to let a slip of a girl tak'
you away frae your ain work and your ain duty--and you call yourself a
man!”
He began to coax and appease her, and before long the grim old face was
struggling between smiles and tears.
“Tut! get along wi' ye! I've a great mind, though--I'd be liking fine to
see her anyway. Now, where does she bide in London?”
“Why do you want to know that, auntie?”
“What's it to you, laddie? Can't a body call to say 'Good-bye' to a
lassie, and tak' her a wee present before going away, without asking a
man's permission?”
“I shouldn't do it, though, if I were you.”
“And why not, pray?”
“Because she's as bright as a star and as quick as a diamond, and she'd
see through you in a twinkling. Besides, I shouldn't advise----”
“Keep your advice like your salt till you're asked for it, my man--and
to think of any reasonable body giving up his work in London for
that--that----”
“Good men have gone out to the mission field, auntie.”
“Mission fiddlesticks! Just a barber's chair, fit for every comer.”
“And then this isn't the mission field exactly either.”
“Mair's the pity, and then you wouldna be running bull-neck on your
death before your time.”
“None of us can do that, auntie, for heaven is over all.”
“High words off an empty stomach, my man, so you can just keep them to
cool your parridge. But oh, dear--oh, dear! You'll forget your puir auld
Jane Callender, anyway.”
“Never, auntie!”
“Tut! don't tell me!”
“Never!”
“It's the last I'm to see of you, laddie. I'm knowing that fine--and me
that fond of you too, and looking on you as my ain son.”
“Come, auntie, come; you mustn't take it so seriously.”
“And to think a bit thing like that can make all this botherment!”
“Nay, it's my own doing--absolutely mine.”
“Aye, aye, man's the head, but woman turns it.”
They dined together and then got into the carriage for Soho. John talked
continually, with an impetuous rush of enthusiasm; but the old lady
sat in gloomy silence, broken only by a sigh. At the corner of Downing
Street he got out to call on the Prime Minister, and sent the carriage
on to the clergy-house.
A newsboy going down Whitehall was calling an evening paper. John bought
a copy, and the first thing his eye fell upon was the mention of his
own name: “The announcement in another column that Father Storm of Soho
intends to take up the work which the heroic Father Damien has just laid
down will be received by the public with mingled joy and regret--joy
at the splendid heroism which prompts so noble a resolve, regret at
the loss which the Church in London will sustain by the removal of
a clergyman of so much courage, devotion, independence, and
self-sacrifice.... That the son of a peer and heir to an earldom should
voluntarily take up a life of poverty in Soho, one of the most crowded,
criminal, and neglected corners of Christendom, was a fact of so much
significance----”
John Storm crushed the paper in his hand and threw it into the street;
but a few minutes afterward he saw another copy of it in the hands of
the Prime Minister as he came to the door of the Cabinet room to greet
him. The old man's face looked soft, and his voice had a faint tremor.
“I'm afraid you are bringing me bad news, John.”
John laughed noisily. “Do I look like it, uncle? Bad news, indeed! No,
but the best news in the world.”
“What is it, my boy?”
“I am about to be married. You've often told me I ought to be, and now
I'm going to act on your advice.”
The bleak old face was smiling. “Then the rumour I see in the papers
isn't true, after all?”
“Oh, yes, it's true enough, and my wife is to go with me.”
“But have you considered that carefully? Isn't it a terrible demand to
make of any woman? Women are more religious than men, but they are more
material also. Under the heat of religious impulse a woman is capable of
sacrifices--great sacrifices--but when it has cooled----”
“No fear of that, uncle,” said John; and then he told the Prime Minister
what he had told Mrs. Callender--that it was Glory's proposal that they
should leave London, and that without this suggestion he might not have
thought of his present enterprise. The bleak face kept smiling, but the
Prime Minister was asking himself: “What does this mean? Has she _her
own_ reasons for wishing to go away?”
“Do you know, my boy, that with all this talk you've not yet told me who
she is?”
John told him, and then a faint and far-off rumour out of another world
seemed to flit across his memory.
“An actress at present, you say?”
“So to speak, but ready to give up everything for this glorious
mission.”
“Very brave, no doubt, very beautiful; but what of your present
responsibilities--your responsibilities in London?”
“That's just what I came to speak about,” said John; and then his
rapturous face straightened, and he made some effort to plunge into the
practical aspect of his affairs at Soho. There was his club for
girls and his home for children. They were to be turned out of the
clergy-house tomorrow, and he had taken a shelter at Westminster.
But the means to support them were still deficient, and if there was
anything coming to him that would suffice for that purpose--if there was
enough left--if his mother's money was not all gone----
The Prime Minister was looking into John's face, watching the play of
his features, but hardly listening to what he said. “What does this
mean?” he was asking himself, in the old habitual way of the man whose
business it is to read the motives that are not revealed.
“So you are willing to leave London, after all, John?”
“Why not, uncle? London is nothing to me in itself, less than nothing;
and if that brave girl to whom it is everything----”
“And yet six months ago I gave you the opportunity of doing so, and
then----”
“Then my head was full of dreams, sir. Thank God, they are gone now, and
I am awake at last!”
“But the Church--I thought your duty and devotion to the Church----”
“The Church is a chaos, uncle, a wreck of fragments without unity,
principle, or life. No man can find foothold in it now without
accommodating his duty and his loyalty to his chances of a livelihood.
It is a career, not a crusade. Once I imagined that a man might live as
a protest against all this, but it was a dream, a vain and presumptuous
dream.”
“And then your woman movement----”
“Another dream, uncle! A whole standing army marshalled and equipped
to do battle against the world's sins toward woman could never hope for
victory. Why? Because the enemy is ourselves, and only God can contend
against a foe like that. He will, too! For the wrongs inflicted on woman
by this wicked and immoral London God will visit it with his vengeance
yet. I see it coming, it is not far off, and God help those----”
“But surely, my boy, surely it is not necessary to fly away from the
world in order to escape from your dreams? Just when it is going to be
good to you, too. It was kicking and cuffing and laughing at you only
yesterday----”
“And to-morrow it would kick and cuff and laugh at me again. Oh, it is
a cowardly and contemptible world, uncle, and happy is the man who wants
nothing of it! He is its master, its absolute master, and everybody else
is its wretched slave. Think of the people who are scrambling for fame
and titles and decorations and invitations to court! They'll all be in
their six feet by two feet some-day. And then think of the rich men who
hire detectives to watch over their children lest they should be stolen
for sake of a ransom, while they themselves, like human mill-horses, go
tramping round and round the safes which contain their securities!
Oh, miserable delusion, to think that because a nation is rich it is
therefore great! Once I thought the Church was a refuge from this worst
of the spiritual dangers of the age, and so it would have been if it
had been built on the Gospel. But it isn't; it loves the thrones of the
world and bows down to the golden calf. Poverty! Give me poverty and let
me renounce everything. Jesus, our blessed Jesus, he knew well what he
was doing in choosing to be poor, and even as a man he was the greatest
being that ever trod upon the earth.”
“But this leper island mission is not poverty merely, my dear John--it
is death, certain death, sooner or later, and God knows what news the
next mail may bring us!”
“As to that I feel I am in God's hands, sir, and he knows best what is
good for us. People talk about dying before their time, but no man ever
did or ever will or ever can do so, and it is blasphemy to think of it.
Then which of us can prolong our lives by one day or hour or minute? But
God can do everything. And what a grand inspiration to trust yourself
absolutely to him, to raise the arms heavenward which the world would
pinion to your side and cry, 'Do with me as thou wilt, I am ready for
anything--anything.'”
A tremor passed over the wrinkles about the old man's eyes, and he
thought: “All this is self-deception. He doesn't believe a word of it.
Poor boy! his heart alone is leading him, and he is the worst slave of
us all.”
Then he said aloud: “Things haven't fallen out as I expected, John,
and I am sorry, very sorry. The laws of life and the laws of love don't
always run together--I know that quite well.”
John flinched, but made no protest.
“I shall feel as if I were losing your mother a second time when you
leave me, my boy. To tell you the truth, I've been watching you
and thinking of you, though you haven't known it. And you've rather
neglected the old man. I thought you might bring your wife to me some
day, and that I might live to see your children. But that's all over
now, and there seems to be no help for it. They say the most noble and
beautiful things in the world are done in a state of fever, and perhaps
this fever of yours---H'm. As for the money, it is ready for you at any
time.”
“There can't be much left, uncle. I have gone through most of it.”
“No, John, no; the money you spent was my money--your own is still
untouched.”
“You are too good, uncle, and if I had once thought you wished to see
more of me----”
“Ah, I know, I know. It was a wise man who said it was hard to love a
woman and do anything else, even to love God himself.”
John dropped his head and turned to go.
“But come again before you leave London--if you do leave it--and now
good-bye, and God bless you!”
The news of John Storm's intention to follow Father Damien had touched
and thrilled the heart of London, and the streets and courts about St.
Mary Magdalene's were thronged with people. In their eyes he was about
to fulfil a glorious mission, and ought to be encouraged and sustained.
“Good-bye, Father!” cried one. “God bless you!” cried another. A young
woman with timid eyes stretched out her hand to him, and then everybody
attempted to do the same. He tried to answer cheerfully, but was
conscious that his throat was thick and his voice was husky. Mrs.
Pincher was at the door of the clergy-house, crying openly and wiping
her eyes. “Ain't there lepers enough in London, sir, without goin' to
the ends of the earth for 'em?” He laughed and made an effort to answer
her humorously, but for some reason both words and ideas failed him.
The club-room was crowded, and among the girls and the Sisters there
were several strange faces. Mrs. Callender sat at one end of the little
platform, and she was glowering across at the other end, where the
Father Superior stood in his black cassock, quiet and watchful, and with
the sprawling, smiling face of Brother Andrew by his side. The girls
were singing when John entered, and their voices swelled out as they saw
him pushing his way through. When the hymn ended there was silence for
a moment as if it was expected that he would speak, but he did not rise,
and the lady at the harmonium began again. Some of the young mothers
from the shelter above had brought down their little ones, and the thin,
tuneless voices could be heard among the rest:
There's a Friend for little children
Above the bright blue sky.
John had made a brave fight for it, but he was beginning to break down.
Everybody else had risen, he could not rise. An expression of fear
and at the same time of shame had come into his face. Vaguely,
half-consciously, half-reproachfully, he began to review the situation.
After all, he was deserting his post, he was running away. This was his
true scene, his true work, and if he turned his back upon it he would
be pursued by eternal regrets. And yet he must go, he must leave
everything--that alone he understood and felt.
All at once, God knows why, he began to think of something which had
happened when he was a boy. With his father he was crossing the Duddon
Sands. The tide was out, far out, but it had turned, it was galloping
toward them, and they could hear the champing waves on the beach behind.
“Run, boy, run! Give me your hand and run!”
Then he resumed the current of his former thoughts. “What was I thinking
about?” he asked himself; and when he remembered, he thought, “I will
give my hand to the heavenly Father and go on without fear.” At the
second verse he rallied, rose to his feet, and joined in the singing.
It was said afterward that his deep voice rang out above all the other
voices, and that he sang in rapid and irregular time, going faster and
faster at every line.
They had reached the last verse but one, when he saw a young girl
crushing her way toward him with a letter. She was smiling, and seemed
proud to render him this service. He was about to lay the letter aside
when he glanced at it, and then he could not put it down. It was marked
“Urgent,” and the address was in Glory's handwriting. The champing waves
were in his ears again. They were coming on and on.
A presentiment of evil crept over him and he opened the letter and
read it. Then his life fell to wreck in a moment. Its nullity, its
hopelessness, its futility, its folly, the world with its elusive joys,
love with its deceptions so cruel and so sweet-all, all came sweeping
up on him like the sea-wrack out of a storm. In an instant the truth
appeared to him, and he understood himself at last. For Glory's sake he
had sacrificed everything and deceived himself before God and man. And
yet she had failed him and forsaken him, and slipped out of his hands
in the end. The tide had overtaken and surrounded him, and the voices of
the girls and the children were like the roar of the waters in his ears.
But what was this? Why had they stopped singing? All at once he became
aware that everybody else was seated, and that he was standing alone on
the edge of the platform with Glory's letter in his hand.
“Hush! hush!” There was a strained silence, and he tried to recollect
what it was that he was expected to do. Every eye was on his face. Some
of the strangers opened note-books and sat ready to write. Then, coming
to himself, he understood what was before him, and tried to control his
voice and begin.
“Girls,” he said, but he was hardly able to speak or breathe. “Girls,”
he said again, but his strong voice shook, and he tried in vain to go
on.
One of the girls began to sob. Then another and another. It was said
afterward that nobody could look on his drawn face, so hopeless, so full
of the traces of suffering and bitter sadness, without wanting to cry
aloud. But he controlled himself at length.
“My good friends all, you came to-night to bid me Godspeed on a long
journey and I came to bid you farewell. But there is a higher power that
rules our actions, and it is little we know of our own future, or our
fate or ourselves. God bids me tell you that my leper island is to be
London, and that my work among you is not done yet.”
After saying this he stood a moment as if intending to say more, but he
said nothing. The letter crinkled in his fingers, he looked at it, an
expression of helplessness came into his face, and he sat down. And
then the Father came up to him and sat beside him, and took his hand and
comforted it as if he had been a little child.
There was another attempt to sing, but the hymn made no headway this
time, for some of the girls were crying, they hardly knew why, and
others were whispering, and the strangers were leaving the room. Two
ladies were going down the stairs.
“I felt sure he wouldn't go,” said one.
“Why so?” said the other.
“I can't tell you. I had my private reasons.”
It was Rosa Macquarrie. Going down the dark lane she came upon a woman
who had haunted the outside of the building during the past half hour,
apparently thinking at one moment of entering and at the next of going
away. The woman hurriedly lowered her veil as Rosa approached her, but
she was too late to avoid recognition.
“Glory! Is it you?”
Glory covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
“Whatever are you doing here?”
“Don't ask me, Rosa. Oh, I'm a lost woman! Lord forgive me, what have I
done?”
“My poor child!”
“Take me home, Rosa. And don't leave me to-night, dear--not to-night,
Rosa.”
And Rosa took her by the arm and led her back to Clement's Inn.
Next morning before daybreak the brothers of the Society of the Holy
Gethsemane had gathered in their church in Bishopsgate Street for Lauds
and Prime. Only the chancel was lighted up, the rest of the church was
dark, but the first gleams of dawn, were now struggling through the
eastern window against the candlelight on the altar and the gaslight on
the choir.
John Storm was standing on the altar steps and the Father was by his
side. He was wearing the cassock of the Brotherhood, and the cord with
the three knots was bound about his waist. All was silent round about,
the city was still asleep, the current of life had not yet awakened for
the day. Lauds and Prime were over, the brothers were on their knees,
and the Father was reading the last words of the dedication service.
“Amen! Amen!”
There was a stroke of the bell overhead, a door somewhere was loudly
slammed, and then the organ began to play:
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.
The brothers rose and sang, their voices filled the dark place, and the
quivering sounds of the organ swelled up to the unseen roof.
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty,
God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity!
The Father's cheeks were moist, but his eyes were shining and his face
was full of a great joy. John Storm was standing with bowed head. He had
made the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and surrendered his
life to God.