THE RECTOR’S ROMANCE.
In pity for our painful strife
God aids us from above,
And every mortal in his life
Plucks once the rose of love.
The flower may bloom, the flower may fade,
As love brings joys or woes,
Still in the heart of youth and maid
That sacred blossom grows.
’Tis cherished through declining years,
Amid death’s coming glooms,
And watered by regretful tears,
The flower eternal blooms.
Nor death that rose from us can part,
For when the body dies,
All broken on the broken heart,
That bud of heaven lies.
Roylands Rectory was a comfortable-looking house, distant about a mile
from the Grange, and near the village, which was an extremely small one.
Indeed, although the parish was large, the Rector’s congregation was
not, and his clerical occupation did not entail much work. Nevertheless,
Stephen Carriston did his best to attend to the spiritual welfare of the
souls under his charge; and if the hardest day’s work still left him
with plenty of spare time on his hands, that could hardly be called his
fault. The Rector abhorred idleness, which is said to be the mother of
all the vices, and managed to fill up his unoccupied hours in a
sufficiently pleasant manner by indulging in occupations congenial to
his tastes. He was now engaged in translating the comedies of
Aristophanes into English verse, and found the biting wit of the great
Athenian playwright very delightful after the dull brains of his
parishioners. For the rest, he pottered about his garden and attended to
his roses, which were the pride of his heart, as well they might be,
seeing that his small plot of ground was a perfect bower of loveliness.
It is at this point that the pen fails and the brush should come in; for
it would be simply impossible to give in bald prose an adequate
description of the paradise of flowers contained within the red brick
walls which enclosed the garden on three sides. The fourth side was the
house, a quaint, low-roofed, old-fashioned place, with deep
diamond-paned lattices, and stacks of curiously-twisted chimneys. Built
in the reign of the Second Charles, it yet bore the date of its
erection, 1666, the _annus mirabilis_ of Dryden, when half London was
swept away by the fire, and half its inhabitants by the plague. Rector
Carriston liked this house,—nay, like is too weak a word, he loved
it,—as its antiquity, matching with his own, pleased him; and besides,
having resided within its red-tiled roof for over thirty years, it was
natural that he should be deeply attached to its quaint walls and still
quainter rooms.
But the garden! oh, the garden was a miracle of beauty! and only
Crispin, who deals in such lovelinesses, could describe its perfections,
as he did indeed long afterwards, when the good Rector was dead, and
could not read the glowing verse which eulogized his roses. Three
moderately high brick walls, one running parallel to the high road, so
that the Rector could keep a vigilant eye on the incomings and outgoings
of his villagers, fenced in this modern garden of Alcinous, and these
three walls were almost hidden by the foliage of peach and apricot and
nectarine, for it was now midsummer, and nature was decked out in her
gayest robes. A dial in the middle of the smooth lawn, with its warning
motto, which the Rector did not believe, as Time only sauntered with
him; a noble elm, wherein the thrush fluted daily, and a bower of
greenery, in which the nightingale piped nightly: it was truly an ideal
retreat, rendered still more perfect by the roses. The roses! oh, the
red, white, and yellow roses! how they bloomed in profusion under the
old red wall, which drew the heat of the sun into its breast, and then
showered it second-hand on the delicate, warmth-loving flowers. Great
creamy buds, trembling amid their green leaves at the caress of the
wind, gorgeously crimson blossoms burning incense to the hot sun,
pale-tinted flowers, which flushed delicately at the dawn hour, and
bright yellow orbs, which looked as though the touch of Midas had turned
them into gold. All the bees for miles around knew that garden, and the
finest honey in the neighborhood owed its existence to the constant
visits they paid to that wilderness of sweets.
Such a bright morning as it was! Above, the blue sky, in which the sun
burned lustily, below, the green earth, pranked with flowers, and
between these two splendors, the Rector, armed with a pair of scissors,
strolling contentedly about his small domain. From the adjacent fields,
where the corn was yet young, sprang a brown-feathered lark, which arose
higher and higher in spiral circles, singing as though his throat would
burst with melody, until, the highest point attained, he ceased his
liquid warblings, and fell earthward like a stone. Indeed, the Rector
had no lack of music, for the larks awoke him in the morning, the
thrushes piped to him at noon, and when night fell the divine
nightingale pouring forth her impassioned strains wooed him from his
study, where he was reading the Aristophanic rendering of her song, to
listen to the reality, before which even the magical Greek verse seemed
harsh. ’Twas an ideal place, and in it the Rector lived an ideal
existence, far away from the noise and restlessness of our modern
civilization. In his study he had the books of genius, which he greatly
loved, but in his garden he possessed the book of God, which he loved
still more; and even had not he been a devout believer in the goodness
of the Almighty, surely that garden would have converted him with its
dewy splendors.
An odd figure looked Mr. Carriston, shuffling about in a pair of
comfortable old slippers, a very raven in blackness, save for the
wide-brimmed straw hat shading his gray hairs, his benevolent-looking
face. With a green watering-pan in one hand, and the scissors in the
other, he pried and peered among his beloved flowers, with his two
pets—a cat and a magpie—at his heels, and clipped off a dead leaf here,
plucked a withered blossom there, with the tenderest anxiety for the
well-being of the roses.
“Dear, dear!” sighed the Rector, pausing before a drooping-looking
Gloire de Dijon; “this does not seem at all healthy. It needs rain—in
fact, I think the flowers would be none the worse of a shower or so; but
there’s no sign of rain,” looking anxiously up to the cloudless sky. “I
wonder if a little manure”—
Down went the Rector on his knees, and began grubbing about the roots of
the plant, much to the discomfort of the magpie, who hopped about near
him in an agitated manner.
“A brass thimble,” said Mr. Carriston, making a discovery, “a copper,
and three blue beads. The roots of the plant wounded, too, with
scratching. This is your work, Simon. I wish you would hide your rubbish
somewhere else.”
The magpie, otherwise Simon, made a vicious peck at the Rector’s hand,
to revenge himself for the discovery of his treasure; then, anxious to
save something, snatched up the thimble and made off hastily.
“Too bad of Simon,” murmured Mr. Carriston, rubbing his nose in a vexed
manner. “I will have to ask Mukle to keep him in the back yard. Ah,
Mukle! what is it?”
Mukle—to the rector, Mrs. Mukle to her friends—was a hard-featured, bony
woman, who looked as if she had been cut out of a deal board. Her
cooking was much more agreeable than her appearance, and, having been
with the rector—whom she adored—for many years, she knew to a turn what
he liked and what he did not like, therefore suited him admirably in her
double capacity of cook and housekeeper.
“Mr. Roylands, sir!” announced Mukle grimly.
“Oh, where is he?”
“Study, sir,” responded Mukle, who was a lady with a firm belief in the
golden rule of silence.
“Ask him to come here.”
An assenting sniff was Mukle’s only reply, and, turning on her heel in a
military fashion,—the late Mr. Mukle had been a soldier,—she strode back
to the house like a grenadier.
Meanwhile, Mr. Carriston, having risen to his feet, was dusting his
knees, and, while thus engaged, saw Maurice coming towards him.
Assuredly the master of the Grange was a fine specimen of humanity, for
he was over six feet in height, and, being arrayed in shooting-coat,
knickerbockers, and deerstalker’s hat, looked a remarkably striking
figure. He would have looked better had his face borne a smile, but, as
it was, he came solemnly forward and took the rector’s outstretched hand
as if he was chief mourner at a funeral.
“You shouldn’t be a country gentleman, Maurice,” said Mr. Carriston,
after the usual greetings had been exchanged. “The occupation of a monk
would suit you better.”
Maurice said nothing, but sighed wearily.
“Come now, my dear lad; if you sigh in that fashion, I shall suspect you
of being a lover, in spite of your asseveration to the contrary.”
“A man can’t marry his aunt, and as Crispin wants to marry Eunice, no
one is left for me but my honorable relation.”
“Try Mukle.”
“Too much of a grenadier.”
“I think you are the same—in height,” said the Rector, looking
approvingly at his tall friend. “If old Father Fritz had seen the pair
of ye, I think he would have insisted upon the marriage, so as to breed
a race of giants. But, dear, dear! what nonsense we talk! Come and sit
down, my lad. Will you smoke?”
“No, thank you, sir. I’m tired of smoking.”
“Maurice, if you go on in this fashion, I will be angry with you. It’s a
beautiful day, so you ought to have a beautiful smile on your face.
Listen to that lark! Does not its gush of song thrill your heart? Admire
my roses! Where, even in the gorgeous East, will you see such splendor?
The birds sing, the sun shines, the flowers bloom, and yet you are as
discontented as if you were shut up between four bare walls. Maurice,
I’m really and truly ashamed of your ingratitude to God for His many
gifts.” Maurice made no reply, but punched holes in the gravel with his
walking-stick. “Now you wait here, my lad,” said the Rector, recovering
breath after his little lecture, “and see if yon lark will sing you into
a better frame of mind. It may be the David to your Saul, and drive the
evil spirit out of you. I am going away to wash my hands, which are
somewhat grubby with my gardening, and will return in a few moments.”
Off went the Rector with a light step, as springy as that of a young
man, and Maurice looked after him in sheer envy of such
light-heartedness.
“Why cannot I be happy like that?” he sighed, baring his head to the
cool breeze.
Did ever a man ask himself so ridiculous a question? Here was a healthy
young man, of good personal appearance, with a superfluity of the gifts
of fortune, yet he commiserated himself for nothing at all, and
propounded riddles to himself which he was unable to answer. But all
such misery came from incessant brooding and self-analysis, which is
bound to make even the most complacent person dissatisfied with his
advantages in the long-run. If Maurice, throwing aside his books, art,
broodings, and everything else, had gone in for fishing, hunting,
dancing, rowing, as he did in his earlier youth, his mind would soon
have resumed its normal healthiness. Unluckily, the ten years’ life in
Bohemia, where he had no money nor time to indulge in such sports, had
weakened his interest in them, and he by no means seemed inclined to
take up the broken thread of his life. This was a great mistake, as, had
he reverted to his earlier mode of living, he would in a short time have
come to look upon that weary decade as but a bad dream, and ultimately
have recovered this _mens sana in corpore sano_ condition, which is so
essential to the happiness of one’s existence. If there is a person to
be envied, ’tis a healthy man with an average stock of brains, for he
does not live with shadows, he has no torturing dreams, he does not rack
his soul with thinking out the problems of life; but simply takes the
goods the gods provide, enjoys them to the full measure of his capacity,
and throws all disturbing influences to the winds. Maurice Roylands was
a man of this sort in many respects, but he had a trifle too much brain
power, and therefore, in accordance with the great law of compensation,
suffered from the excess, by using it to torture his otherwise healthy
mind. Unfortunately, he did not reason in this way, but, feeling that he
was miserable, hastily decided that such misery was incurable. Not a
wise way of looking at the matter certainly, but then Maurice, though no
fool in many ways, was not a Solomon for wisdom; and besides,
Melancholia, who places all things in a dull light, had him in her grip,
which prevented him from giving his diseased mind the medicine it
required.
However, in accordance with his old tutor’s instructions, he sat there
in silence, drinking in the odors of the flowers, and listening to the
music of the lark. Not only that, but a thrush in the tree above him
began to pour forth his mellow notes; and though it was nigh mid-June,
he heard the quaint call of the cuckoo sound in the distance. Nature and
Nature’s voices exercised their benign influence on his restless spirit,
and even in that short space of time soothed him so much that, when Mr.
Carriston returned, he missed the frowning face with which Maurice had
greeted him.
“Ah,” said the Rector, with a nod of satisfaction, “you have benefited
by the music of the birds already. I would undertake to cure you, if you
would only let me be your physician. Now your soul is more at rest, but
I have no doubt your nerves need soothing, so try this churchwarden and
this excellent tobacco.”
Maurice burst out laughing at this odd cure for melancholy, but did not
refuse the Rector’s hospitality; and any one who entered the garden a
few minutes afterwards, would have discovered the venerable Rector and
the youthful Squire puffing gravely at long clays, like two cronies in a
village taproom.
They chatted in a desultory manner of little things, such as Mrs.
Dengelton,—who would have been very angry to find herself placed in such
a category,—Eunice, love-making, Crispin, the home farm, and such like
trifles, when, after a short pause, Maurice abruptly turned to the
Rector, who, lying back in luxurious ease, was watching the trembling of
the leaves above his head.
“And the story, Rector?”
This question brought Mr. Carriston from heaven to earth, and he looked
at the young man with a grave smile on his face.
“Ah, the story,” he repeated, laying aside his pipe. “Yes, I promised to
tell you the one romance of my life. I am afraid it is a very prosaic
romance, still it may show you how a man can find life endurable even
after his heart is broken.”
“Why, Rector, is your heart broken?”
“I thought it was once, but I’m afraid ’twas mended long ago. _Et ego in
Arcadia fui_, Maurice, although you would never think so to look at me.
Tush! what has an old man pottering about among his flowers in common
with Cupid, god of love? Yet I, too, have sported with Amaryllis in the
shade, and piped love-songs to the careless ear of Neæra.”
He sighed a trifle sadly, very probably somewhat regretful of that dead
and gone romance which still looked bright through the mists of forty
years, and glanced sorrowfully at the wrinkled hands which had once
played with the golden tresses of Chloe. Ah, Chloe was old now, and her
famous golden locks were white with the snows of many winters; or
perchance she was dead, with the gentle winds blowing across her daisied
grave, and piping songs as beautiful as those of her faithful shepherd.
Is it not a painful thing to be old and gray and full of sad memories of
our fine days? yet, mingled with such melancholics, we recall many
bright dreams which then haunted our youthful brains. Alas, Arcady! why
are we not permitted to dwell forever in thy flowery meadows, beneath
thy blue sky, instead of being driven forth by the whip of Fate to
crowded cities and desolate wastes, wherein sound no gleeful melodies.
“It was at Oxford that I first met her,” said the Rector in his mellow
voice, which was touched with vague regret; “for she, too, dwelt in that
grave scholastic city. I was not in holy orders then! No; my ambition
was to be a soldier, and win the V.C.; but, alas! such dreams came to
naught. You may not believe it, Maurice, but I was wild and
light-hearted in those days—to be sure, it was Consula Planco, and youth
is ever foolish. Her name was Miriam, and she was a dressmaker. Ah, you
are astonished that I, Stephen Carriston, fixed my eyes on such a lowly
damsel; but then, you see, I loved her dearly, and that, I think, is a
sufficient answer to your unspoken objection. Love knows nothing of rank
or position, and sees beauty in the wayside daisy as well as in the
costly hothouse plant. I need not tell you she was very beautiful, for
that is the common saying of lovers, who see no loveliness save in the
nymph of their affections. What is it the poet says about a lover seeing
Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt? Sure, my memory is weak with age,
and I misquote. Still, the saying is true. Miriam was very beautiful,
and I think must have had some Jewish blood in her veins, for her dark,
imperial beauty was that of the East. Her hair was as dark as the wing
of a raven, her eyes liquid wells of light, and her mouth was as the
thread of scarlet spoken of in the song of the wise king. You see,
Maurice, old as I am, I can still rhapsodize on Chloe’s perfections,
though she basely deceived me. Alas, Strephon! how the years have
destroyed thy goddess!—nay, she destroyed herself by her own act.”
“I did not know you were a poet, Rector.”
Mr. Carriston, whose brow was dark with bitter memories, aroused himself
with a forced laugh, and strove to speak lightly of the past.
“Live and learn, Maurice. I no poet? Why, my dear lad, I am even now
courting the Nine, and turning Aristophanes into good English verse. No
poet? Why, every man is a poet when in love; and if he does not write a
poem, he at least lives a poem. I, alas, have been in love these many
years with a shadow—the shadow of Miriam before she left me!”
“Left you?”
“Yes. I call it my romance, but it is a painful story. A deceitful
woman, a wronged man, a treacherous friend—a common enough tale, I
think. Though, indeed, I need not include ‘friend,’ for to this day I
know not for whom she left me.”
“She was your wife?”
“Yes. Wild as I was in those days, I was too honorable to deceive a
woman. In spite of the difference of our position, I married her, and we
were happy together for ten years.”
“Ten years!” replied Maurice in surprise. “Surely she did not leave you
after all that time of married happiness.”
“Who knows the ways of women?” said the Rector bitterly. “Yes, she left
me—took from me all I loved in the world, herself and her child.”
“Was there a child?”
“Yes. He was born in the tenth year of our marriage, just when I had
given up all hope of being a father. If he is still alive, Maurice, he
will be just five years younger than you,—thirty years old,—and for that
I love you, my dear lad; you stand to me in the place of the son I have
lost.”
“Did you not suspect any one of taking her away?”
“Yes; one man,” answered the Rector gloomily. “He was a tall,
black-bearded fellow, who had just come back from the East; but I only
saw him once. I was a hard-worked London curate in those days, and had
but little time to spare. My wife met him—I think his name was Captain
Malcolm—at the house of a mutual friend; but perhaps I am wrong, and it
was not he who destroyed my happiness. She had so many friends. I can
hardly wonder at that, for she was then in the full pride of her womanly
beauty. There was a Frenchman, the Count de la Tour, I also suspected,
but I was sure of no one. I suppose she grew tired of our poor life;
for, in spite of the way in which she went into society, we were
poor—that is, comfortable for a quiet life, but too poor for a social
one. I, never suspecting any evil, was only too glad that she should go
out and enjoy herself, although at times I remonstrated with her, saying
that such gayety was not suited for the wife of a poor clergyman. She
said she would give up such frivolities shortly, and I, like a fool,
believed her. Then I was called down to see my father, who was very ill.
At length he died, and I remained to attend to the funeral; but when I
came back to London after a three weeks’ absence, I found she had gone
with the child. She left no letter behind her to palliate her guilt; all
I knew was that she had gone with some gentleman who had called for her
in a brougham. The servants could not describe the man, as he did not
enter the house, but remained in the carriage. My false wife told the
servants she was called away by me, as her father-in-law was dying; and
it was only when I returned that they learned the truth.”
“Did you ever see this Captain Malcolm again?”
“No, nor the Count de la Tour; so that is why I suspect one of those men
as being the ruin of my life. Besides, I heard afterwards that she went
a great deal about with them, sometimes with one, sometimes with the
other. One of them I am sure it was, but I know not which. So you see,
at one blow, Maurice, I was bereft of wife, child, home, and happiness.
Afterwards I was offered this living, and, wishing to leave the scene of
my former happiness, my former sorrow, my former disgrace, I accepted
it, and came down here, where I have lived in peace for thirty years.”
“Did you get a divorce?”
“Yes; for the sake of my guilty wife. I did not wish to marry again
myself, but I desired to leave her free, so that she might marry the
partner of her guilt. I hope he behaved honorably to her and did so;
but, alas! I know not.”
“And the boy?”
“I have never heard of him since. I was left rich by the death of my
father, and all that money could do was done, but I heard nothing of
either wife or child. Is it not a sad story, Maurice?”
“Yes, very sad! You must have suffered terribly.”
“I did suffer terribly; but I tell you this, dear lad, to show you how a
man can force himself to be cheerful, even when he thinks life has no
further joys for him. Look at me! When my wife left me, I thought that
the sun of my life had set forever. I looked forward to years of misery;
and probably my existence would have been miserable, had I not, with the
aid of God, resisted the evil one. I did resist him, by accustoming
myself to take an interest in all things; and, by schooling myself into
patience, I found life, if not blissful, at least endurable. I now love
my work among my parishioners, I enjoy my Greek studies, I interest
myself in my garden, and am thus able to live a comparatively happy
life. Had I given way weakly to my misery, I would have been an unhappy
man all my life, and have done no good in my generation; but I fought
against the evil spirit, with the aid of God I conquered him, and now
can look back with thankfulness to the calamity which tried and
chastened my soul.”
“And you are happy now?”
“Yes,” said the Rector firmly. “I am as happy as any mortal can hope to
be. ‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,’ says Job; but if
we did not fight against these troubles they would overwhelm us. So, my
dear lad, do as I have done, fight against the evil spirit, and, with
God’s grace, you will be victorious.”
“I thank you for your advice, sir, and I will try and follow it.”
“My story is but a dull one, I am afraid,” resumed the Rector, after a
pause,—“dull and prosaic, with no romance to render it captivating; but
I only told it to show to you what a man can do if he fights against his
troubles, and does not yield weakly at the first attack of the enemy.
You have no unhappy love, you have no regrets; therefore, my dear lad,
show yourself to be a man, and do not thus weakly yield to a phantom of
your own creation. Try to be interested in life, fall in love and marry
if you can, and I promise you all will yet be well with you. Your
troubles are but dreams of a disordered brain, which can be banished by
an effort of will; so rouse yourself, Maurice, conquer your weak spirit,
and with God’s help you will be a happy man.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Maurice, grasping the Rector’s hand; “I will do
what you say. I have been weak, but I will be so no longer. I will take
up the duties of life, and do my best to perform them well. Your sermon,
your story, has done me good, Mr. Carriston; and I feel that I would be
indeed a coward to flinch from the fray in which you have so bravely
fought and conquered.”
“Good lad! good lad!” replied the delighted Rector. “I knew you would
see things in their right light. But come, the lesson is over, and now
is the time for play. You must look round at my roses, and the finest
bud of the garden will adorn your buttonhole as ‘a reward for your
determination.’”
Maurice gladly fell in with the Rector’s humor, and together they
strolled round the garden to examine and admire his floral treasures.
Carriston was like a child in his garden, and his bursts of delight at
this or that particular rose tree would have made many a person smile.
But Maurice did not smile; he loved his old tutor too well to smile at
his simple pleasures, and took scarcely less interest than the Rector
himself in the momentous question of transferring this tree over there,
or ingrafting a hardy shoot in this sickly-looking plant. Suddenly the
Rector stopped, and began to rummage in the pockets of his long black
coat.
“Dear dear!” he said in a vexed tone; “it is not here, and yet I am sure
I placed it in this pocket.”
“Placed what, sir?”
“A letter! a letter! No, I can’t find it. Maurice, I wish you to stay to
luncheon. I have a friend coming.”
“Indeed?”
“Well, not exactly a friend; but, the fact is, a young man has arrived
in the village with a letter of introduction to me from a mutual friend
in London. He is at present staying at the Royland Arms, and sent his
letter this morning, so I wrote back and asked him to come to luncheon.
You must stay and meet him, Maurice, for I hear he is a most delightful
man.”
“What is his name?”
“I cannot remember. He is a Greek. The letter must be in my study, so we
will go and look for it. This young Greek is a great traveller, and is
now on a visit to England. He had a letter of introduction to my friend,
the Archdeacon of Eastminster, who gave him one to me.”
“But what does he come to this out-of-the-way place for?” asked Maurice,
with that inherent suspicion he had acquired in Bohemia.
“I don’t know. I expect he will answer that question for himself at
luncheon. Ah, here is the letter—I left it on the table.”
“Well, what is his name?” asked Maurice again.
The rector adjusted his _pince-nez_, and, smoothing open the letter,
read the name aloud:—
“Count Constantine Caliphronas.”