DARKNESS
Cicely came out into the golden weather of that belated St. Martin’s
Summer day which she had said had been sent to bless her path to
her new home. The sunshine was as warm, the air as soft, the sky as
beautifully blue as when she had crossed the threshold of her paradise,
from which horror and her stumbling conscience were driving her, but
she saw nothing of the beauty around her.
Shut into her own mind, she walked unseeing, unaware, the interior
darkness not lifting even so much as to reveal to her what and why she
suffered. Or did she suffer? Something had happened to her; everything
was obliterated; pain was not conscious to her, nor loss, but in a
vacuum that forbade breath, in a pit without ray or exit, she walked
the Beaconhite streets, not knowing where she went, nor whom she
passed. Something repeated ceaselessly: “A wife. A wife, alive; he has
a wife. He is married.” She did not know why she so insisted upon this;
it tired her, and many men had a wife. Who was it that had one whose
having one so mattered to her?
She could not think; she must think. That was it; she must think. Never
before had she felt the need of thinking, but there was something that
she must think out. What it was, or why she must think about it, she
could not tell, but the immediate, pressing necessity was to think;
she must find a place to think in. Not her own room at Mrs. Wallace’s;
she would not go there. The park? That might do, though she would like
to go where no one could come near her, and the park would be full of
strollers on such a Sunday as this. Solitude, a place to think, to
gather up vague horrors which were lurking at the back of her brain,
waiting to be assembled into definite agony. Cis dimly felt that agony
was upon her, beginning, yet almost it would be better than this
strange bewilderment which held for her but two cogent impressions.
They rose up out of her chaos like spars of a shipwreck: Someone,
Rodney Moore--but she could not quite grasp who Rodney Moore was, why
his affairs affected her--had a living wife. And she must find solitude
and think; there was something that she must clearly see, upon which
she must decide.
She turned the corner of a street, going on aimlessly. The church
had not occurred to her as a quiet place in which she could think,
still less did it occur to poor Cicely, who had few of the habits of
devotion, to seek the church for enlightenment, guidance, strength. She
had never formed the custom of making visits to the church, so now,
bewildered, benumbed, there was no deep-seated instinct to lead her
thither when her brain was not directing her steps. Yet before her, as
she came down this street into which she had turned, stood the church
of St. Francis Xavier, the church to which she repaired nearly every
week for her compulsory Mass of Sunday.
“That ought to be a quiet place,” Cis told herself, and ascended the
church steps. It was a large church, fine in architecture, not tasteful
in decoration. It was much too strong-colored, too bizarre in the
designs of its interior, yet it contrived to get an effect of splendor,
in spite of its offenses against the canons of art, and it needed no
contriving to give an instant sense of cheerfulness, of homelikeness,
of kindness, and, withal, of devotion to those who entered it.
There were but few people in it at this hour, when dinner and the
companionship of the weekly holiday occupied most of its frequenters.
Those who were there were kneeling at the farther end of the deep
building, before the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, or the Sacred Heart
altar, or before the Pietà that stood near the sanctuary rail, just
within it. A half dozen, or less, knelt before the candelabrum which
held the votive candles; they had each lighted one, and were praying
raptly that the boon which they implored by whispered prayer and
representative little candle might be granted.
Cis went into a pew close to the door, and from habit, but without
consciousness of her action, knelt and made the sign of the cross
because she had just come into church. She had long ago fallen into the
way of thus kneeling on entering, and, first of all prayers, repeating
the Act of Contrition.
Now she began slowly, without knowing what she said, to whisper: “In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. O my
God, I am heartily sorry that--” Her lips ceased moving; she could go
no farther. Heartily sorry--for what?
Rodney Moore had a living wife; he was unhappy about it. So was she.
She was sorry that this was so. There was that nice apartment which
he had shown her, and those chairs; one was the chair for the lady of
the house. What hurt her so? Was it her head? It did not seem to her
that she had brought it with her, yet she felt a terrible pain; it
seemed to be in her head. What was it she had to think about? Rodney
was not dead. Why did she feel as though he were dead? Or was it that
there was no Rodney? He had a wife, alive. He had none, so he had
said, but if she were alive? He must have forgotten, poor Rodney, that
when one’s wife is alive--there she is: alive! Still the wife. She was
not thinking, and she had come here to think; it was quiet, deeply,
peacefully quiet, and somehow quieting, as well. She would be able to
think here.
Cis knelt staring at the altar, her face so white that an old woman,
entering, turned as if to speak to her, then changed her mind and
went on, shaking her head pityingly, saying to herself: “God pity and
help her, the poor young creature!” as she ducked her edition of a
genuflection toward the altar and knelt in a pew, rattling big brown
rosary beads, supplemented by several large medals, on the back of the
pew against which she rested her gnarled hands.
Was it that the benison was effective? It was not long before the
strange submergence of her conscious self which had overwhelmed Cicely
on hearing Rodney’s knell of her joy, broke and rolled back, leaving
her soul bare to an agony that saw only too clearly, grasped only too
acutely exactly what had befallen her.
She was promised to marry within four weeks a man whose wife was still
alive!
Under the law of the country Rodney was entirely free. It was the
woman, not he, who had broken the marriage vow, who had desecrated
the marriage, sinned against herself, against Rodney, against God. No
one would ask a man to condone her sin, unrepented, persisted in. The
state issued licenses to marry; it protected the legality of marriage;
under its laws children were made legitimate, their rights protected;
marriage was a civil institution, the foundation of decent living, of
homes which were the unit of the state; it was essentially the bulwark
of civilization. When it ceased to be the foundation of decent living,
when the sin of a parent endangered the legitimacy of children, when
the home was corrupted, the yoke become a galling chain, even disgrace,
then the state, which had approved the union and licensed it under its
laws, revoked it, dissolved it, allowing the innocent partner of the
union to go free, to make another marriage if he, or she, so desired;
be perfectly free to enjoy the rights of every citizen, “life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.”
If there were states which went so far as to allow equal privileges to
the guilty spouse; which gave to one who had debased one marriage,
freedom to contract another, or even others, that was all wrong, of
course, but that consideration was uncalled for in this case. Rodney
was wronged; he had been made free of the person who had wrecked his
happiness, and that was just.
Ah, but what was this, this other side to the divorce question? The
teaching of Christ Himself, of His Church, continuing His teaching,
practising it, though it bore ever so heavily upon a case peculiarly
putting forth pleas for its exception; holding it irrefrangible though
it cost a kingdom, and plunged a whole noble and religious nation into
heresy?
Cicely’s mind was as keenly awake now as it had been benumbed at first.
Teaching that she had heard without realization of hearing it, came to
life, stored up within that memory which is one of the soul’s component
parts.
The Church’s laws were not flexible on fundamental questions; they
were made for all, and whether they were brought to bear upon a case
which seemed to deserve the severity of their full application, or
whether--as now--they seemed too cruel, they admitted no indulgence.
Rodney Moore had married a girl who was baptized in the Catholic
Church, as was he. He had married unwisely, from unworthy motives,
but that did not lessen the guilt of the wife who had betrayed him.
The Church would not insist that the union of marriage be maintained
in such a case as this, but Rodney and his wife had spoken the vow
which precludes the taking of another man or woman in espousal till
death has ended the duration of that vow. The state could annul the
civil marriage which it had made, but far beyond its province lay the
sacramental marriage, so far beyond it that not even the Church, with
its divinely delegated authority to bind and to loose could annul
a marriage to which there was no impediment according to her laws;
performed by her authority under God; vowed to God directly; sealed by
her sacramental seal which cannot be broken till death has broken it.
This knowledge of the Church’s position as to marriage came clearly
before Cicely’s mind as she knelt, her eyes fixed upon the altar, which
she did not see. With such vivid remembrance of what she had been
taught by sermons, by reading, by acquaintance with Catholics like the
Dowling family, whose talk on divorce she had heard and shared, for it
is a subject that no modern American can escape, Cis marshalled the
facts of the Catholic Church’s attitude toward divorce. She had heard
words which returned to her, and she knew who it was that had uttered
them. “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall
cleave to his wife; and they two shall be as one flesh. And he that
shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery.”
Strange that she should remember this! Cis wondered at it; she could
not ordinarily repeat texts. There was no divorce, not within the
Church. Cicely knew now why she had repeated wearily those horrible
words: “He has a living wife.”
Rodney had a living wife, and while she lived Cicely Adair could not
be his wife, however wicked his wife had been--not in the eyes of the
Catholic Church!
There was the crux of the matter. In the eyes of the state, of the
average American society, Cicely Adair, and still another after her,
might be Rodney Moore’s wife for all his first misadventure!
Rodney implored her to come out of the Church into freedom. Ah, yes,
and more, far, far more--into his arms, into his home, into that
lovable, cheery, blessed little apartment waiting for them!
She had but to go to him, tell him that she was ready, that she would
leave all to follow him--She checked herself; even in her thoughts she
could not travesty the divine words which related to marriage, but
to the sacrament of marriage. Not to leave Him did Our Lord bid His
followers leave all to cling to a wife, but rather to come after Him
and, thus coming, derive strength to cleave to one spouse in a union
transcending the weakness of nature.
Back upon its track Cicely’s mind travelled, leaving the thought of
Our Lord’s teaching. Rodney bade her prove her love for him. He had
reminded her of how indifferent a Catholic she was. It was true. She
rarely thought about her faith; it did not form an integral, vital part
of her days. She kept to it, but she did not enjoy it, nor did she
often draw near to its heart, nor know much about its devotions, live
in its calendar year. She dimly knew that some people did these things;
Nan came nearer to it than Cis realized, she imagined, but as a rule
these things seemed to be fit for nuns.
She need never take a definite step, like renouncing her faith overtly.
All that she had to do was to marry Rodney. She would have to be
married by a civil officer, or a minister; no priest could marry her,
of course, and that would put her outside the Church. After that she
would go into her own home, and live her life of complete devotion to
Rodney. If she had children she would widen out to embrace them in her
heart, but Rodney first! Always, always Rodney first! She--they--could
teach their children to be upright, kind, good citizens, good moral
men and women. Rodney said it was ridiculous to delude yourself into
thinking that more than this was needed, or that anyone really knew
anything more about life and death than that a man must live in the
world decently, and then when he died, if there was anything more for
him, he’d be sure to get the good coming to him, because he had not
made the world a worse place for anyone else. And if there were nothing
beyond but a long, dreamless sleep, and pretty flowers springing out of
your ashes--well! Then that’s all there was of it, and you would have
played your part creditably and gone out leaving an honored name.
Cecily saw Rod’s handsome, laughing face in her memory as it had looked
when he had said this, and she heard his jolly, infectious laugh! Oh,
how she wanted him, _wanted_ him! The longing for him swept over her
like physical sickness, and she shuddered, turning cold. She had left
him miserable; she had deserted him. Deserted him in the home he was
making for her; she was wrecking his home a second time as that other
woman had wrecked his first home. She, Cis, was respectable in the eyes
of the world, and that other was not, but was she any better than the
outcast?
Cicely raised her ring to her lips and kissed over and over again its
glowing ruby. “The color of her love, of the warm blood of her great
heart,” Rod had told her the ruby was. And she had been cold-hearted
toward him, had failed him when he trusted her. He might have deceived
her, have married her and not told her till afterward. How splendid he
was to be truthful, honorable toward her! Should she punish him for his
virtues? Even a child is told that if it tells the truth it shall not
be punished, but how cruelly, how wickedly she was punishing Rod, Rory
O’Moore!
She would go to him and beg his forgiveness; he would forgive her,
remembering that she, too, had suffered, that his secret had shocked
her beyond the power to think at first; Rod was always big, and kind.
She would marry him. Even though a magistrate married her and by
so doing expelled her from Catholic communion she would marry him.
Excommunicated! It did sound fearful! But words did not matter! She
would not strike Rodney in the face, drive him from her with a blow
upon his heart!
Cicely’s eyes, fixed upon the altar, unseeing, their gaze turned
inward, suddenly saw. Her gaze turned outward, and she saw the small
golden door upon which her set eyes had been resting, saw it, and saw
the crucifix above it, a tall, vivid crucifix over the tabernacle
door, under the tabernacle dome. And suddenly Cicely began to tremble
violently and her icy hands clutched at the back of the pew before her.
Who, then, would she strike in the Face? Upon Whose Sacred Heart would
she deal the blow which drove Him from her?
Never again should she see that golden door open and her Lord come
forth to her. Never again would a priest turn to her and bid her
“Behold the Lamb of God.” Seldom, ah, seldom did she let the words be
addressed to her now, but--never again? Excommunicated?
She was a poor Catholic, cold, indifferent, ignorant, but she was a
Catholic. She had held to her Faith, after a fashion, and she had known
that she could never substitute another faith for it. For Rodney’s sake
she would leave it, go to him, go from God! She would heal Rodney’s
wounds, but she would join the rabble in the Garden, and betray her
Lord! She would not kiss Him, as Judas had kissed Him, but she would
kiss in bridal kiss the man whose acceptance meant her Lord’s rejection.
Rodney, or her Lord? One or the other; never both. She had not thought
just what it meant, this decision which she had reached upon a flood
of human longing and love. She wanted Rodney. She craved for him as
the body craves for food, the parched throat for water; she agonized
remembering his present pain, that she had inflicted it in return for
his honorable dealing with her.
But now--she saw the Tabernacle. With her soul she saw it, and she felt
by prescience the desolation of the closing of its door, sealed by her
own action. To be an outcast, excommunicated!
Her mind, her torture could go no farther. In that throe her soul was
born, but she could endure no more.
How long she had knelt in the church she had no idea; she took no
cognizance of her body, of its strained position upon the knees on the
narrow kneeling-rest. It was growing dusk in the church; she must have
been there long. There were more people moving up and down the aisles,
and before the shrines; several were making the stations, some coming
down the middle aisle, others going toward the high altar. Cicely saw
none of these.
She swayed on her tired knees, her aching spine no longer supporting
her, and she crumpled up sidewise, falling over the back of the pew
upon which her arms had rested, her head upon them in such wise that no
one noticed that she had fainted. Father Morley had come out through
the sanctuary, into the church, summoned by the little electric bell,
its button placed under the rail, near the votive-lights candelabrum.
It called a priest of that Community to hear a confession when a priest
was needed at another time than the regular days and hours upon which
confessions were heard.
A man had gone into the confessional when Father Morley took his place
in the centre, and had kissed and assumed the narrow stole which had
hung across the door. The penitent took long, so long that some of the
pious women kneeling at the side altars were interested in his case,
and watched to see him emerge, speculating on the nature of his story;
some of them said a little prayer for him that he would “come out all
right,” for good women are always intensely interested in the reform of
a possibly bad man.
At last the absolution had been given, the penitent lingered for a
final question or two and Father Morley’s answers, then he departed to
say his penance and pray his prayers before the great Pietà--which the
interested pious women thought symptomatic.
Father Morley folded his narrow stole, hung it again on the
confessional door, and came out, closing the low door carefully and
noiselessly behind him. He came down the fast darkening church, walking
with his long, easy stride, peering into the pews as he passed with his
near-sighted gaze, looking vainly for a small book which he had lent to
someone, and which that someone had telephoned him to say that she had
left in a pew in the main aisle of the church, instead of returning it
to the lay-brother at the house door, as she had set out to do.
Thus Father Morley came up to Cicely as she lay, fallen over the pew
back, held up from a complete fall by her arms across the back of the
pew in front of her, and her back wedged against the pew in which she
had knelt.
“My daughter, are you ill?” asked the priest, pausing at Cicely’s side.
As she did not answer, nor move, he bent down and touched her. Then he
looked startled and turned her face toward him, lifting her slightly as
he did so. “Cicely Adair!” he exclaimed aloud, instantly recognizing
her, and remembering the name which she had given him. “My child, can
you hear me? Are you ill?”
The easing of her position, her raised head, brought Cicely to part
consciousness. With the help of Father Morley’s hands, supporting her
beneath her arms, she got upon her feet, looking at him dazed, white,
staring.
“Come out into the air, my dear,” said the Jesuit gently. “You are
suffering. It is not bodily sickness, my poor girl! Let me help you
out. Here, my hand under your elbow, so! That’s better. Now slowly;
courage! Come into the pure, good air, Cicely Adair!”
He led Cicely slowly and carefully out of the church, down the steps,
through a small gate beside them, into a grassy yard.
“This is not cloister,” Father Morley said. “Our parochial school
children’s playground. Sit here, my child, on this bench. There is a
bell; I’ll ring for Brother Feely to bring you a cup of coffee and a
few biscuits. Don’t try to speak; you can tell me what you will later.”
A lay-brother with a pale, patient face, and hair as red as Cicely’s
own, came in response to Father Morley’s call, and quickly returned
with a cup of the steaming beverage, and a few thin sweet biscuits on
a plain white plate.
“Sip this, my daughter,” said the Jesuit, with his benignant smile;
“you are exhausted.”
Cicely gratefully drank of the coffee, and revived as it coursed
through her chilled body. She sat up after she had eaten and drank, and
tried to smile at the priest. “You are very kind, Father Morley,” she
said. “I must go. Thank you.”
“Without giving me something in return?” hinted Father Morley. “Aren’t
you going to give me a wee bit of your confidence? What has gone wrong
with you, my child?”
Cicely looked long into the steady, keen, sad, kindly eyes looking down
into hers. She did not want to speak, but, characteristically, spoke
the truth when she felt compelled to speak.
“I’m shocked by what I’ve found out to-day,” she said. “I’ve got to
decide something. I may leave the Church; I don’t know. It’s that, or
hurt someone dearer to me than my life.”
She waited for an explosion of protest from the Jesuit, but none came.
Instead he said quietly: “Not much comparison, is there, between
hurting a human being, and losing Almighty God, betraying your Master
and damning your soul! But no one should decide a great matter hastily;
you’ve felt this is the greatest of great matters, I see. That’s
something. You couldn’t marry a man who had a living wife; all your
decent Catholic womanhood, as well as your religion, is against it.”
Cicely sprang to her feet.
“Father Morley, how could you know?” she gasped.
“Not hard to guess. I’ve been a priest, hearing confessions these
twenty-five years, my child. Only an insuperable obstacle to your
marriage could present to you the alternative you described. You never
will call yourself any man’s wife, when you know you are not a wife,”
replied Father Morley. “But this is no time to talk; you’re tired,
and I dine in a short time. Think of it over night; ‘the night brings
counsel,’ and pray to the Holy Spirit. You’ll not go home to your
lonely struggle, of course; that would never do. I’m going to send you
to Miss Miriam Braithwaite for to-night. She is an elderly woman; the
cleverest, most entertaining person imaginable, but, what is far more
important, she comes near to being a saint underneath her disguise of
it! She is my great friend and reliance. Once more I summon Brother
Feely, and he will telephone Miss Braithwaite, and she will drive over
for you. You’ll enjoy your visit.”
Father Morley made no opening for demur on Cicely’s part, but she tried
to make one.
“Father, I don’t know her! Oh, no! I can’t go! I’m going home,” she
cried.
“You’ll meet Miss Braithwaite within fifteen minutes, and know her
within twenty minutes,” declared Father Morley, with a slight wave of
the hand that dissipated Cicely’s attempt to resist him.
He called Brother Feely, and bade him telephone Miss Braithwaite.
“Tell her I want to send Miss Cicely Adair to her for the night. She
is worn out, tell her; a thoroughly good girl, whom she will like. Ask
her to come over after her as soon as she can, please; Miss Adair is
needing rest.”
Cis sank back, unable to object; indeed she found this arrangement
something of a relief. She dreaded a night alone in her room, and
dreaded what she knew would lie before her, an interview with Rodney
which would be beyond her strength. It was only much later that she
realized that Father Morley had foreseen the same thing, and prevented
it. He had the priest’s intuition which enabled him to know a great
deal that he had not been told.