'L'Amour est comme la dévotion: il vient tard. On n'est
guère amoureuse ni devote à vingt ans ... les prédestinées
elles-mêmes luttent longtemps contre cette grace d'aimer,
plus terrible que la foudre qui tomba sur le chemin de Damas.'
ANATOLE FRANCE.
... 'a Shepherdess, and fair was she.
He found she dwelt in Stratford, E.,
Which ain't exactly Arcadee.'
I
The radiant stillness of early summer morning lay over the gardens of
Monk's Eype; and though the wide stone-flagged terrace was in shadow,
the newly-risen sun rioted gloriously beyond, flecking with pink and
silver the sheets of sand which spread their glistening spaces from the
shore to the sea.
Cecily Wake, already up and dressed, sitting writing by her open window,
felt exquisitely content. The pungent scent thrown out by the geranium
bushes which rose from the curiously twisted vases set at intervals
along the marble balustrade floated up to where she sat, giving a
delicate keenness to the warm sea-wind. She longed to go out of doors
and make her way down to the little strip of beach which she knew lay
below the terraces and gardens; but the plain gold watch which had been
her father's, and a treasured possession of her own since she had left
the convent school, told her that it was only a quarter to six.
Alone the birds, the butterflies, and herself seemed to be awake, in
this enchanting and enchanted place, and she put the longing from her.
Now and again, as she looked up from the two account-books lying open
before her on the old-fashioned, rather rickety little table set at
right angles to the window, and saw before and below her the splendid
views of land and sea, came joyous anticipations of pleasant days to be
spent in the company of Mrs. Robinson. To her fellow-guests--to Downing,
to Wantley--she gave no thought at all. Winfrith alone was a possible
rival. She sighed a little as she remembered that Penelope had seen him
yesterday, and would doubtless see him to-morrow.
The girl was well aware--for only the vain and the obtuse are not always
well aware of such things--that David Winfrith had no liking for her;
more, that he regarded her affection for Mrs. Robinson as slightly
absurd; worst of all, that he viewed with suspicion and disapproval her
connection with the Melancthon Settlement and its affairs.
Some folk are born to charity--such was Cecily Wake; and some, in these
modern days at any rate, have charity thrust upon them--such, in the
matter of the Melancthon Settlement, was David Winfrith. Problems
affected him far more than persons; and though the apparently insoluble
problems of London poverty, London overcrowding, and London
thriftlessness, had become to him matters full of poignant concern, he
gave scarcely a thought to the individuals composing that mass of human
beings whose claims upon society he recognized in theory. What thought
he did give was extremely distasteful to him, perhaps because he
regarded those who now provided these problems as irrevocably condemned
and past present help.
Winfrith had never cared to join in the actual daily effort made by the
small group of educated, refined people, who were the precursors of the
many now trying to grapple with a state of things which the thinkers of
that time were just beginning to realize. Still, his hard good sense had
been of the utmost use to the Settlement, or rather to Mrs. Robinson,
during the years which immediately followed her husband's death.
But though he had been the terror, and the vigorous chaser-forth, of the
sentimental faddist, he had at no time understood the value of that
grain of divine folly without which it is difficult to regain those,
themselves so foolish, that seem utterly lost.
Winfrith had been astonished, and none too well pleased, when he had
found that certain of Cecily Wake's innovations, especially a
day-nursery where mothers could leave their babies throughout their long
working hours, had received the flattery of imitation from several of
the new philanthropic centres then beginning to spring up in all the
poorer quarters of the town. Cecily was full of the eager constructive
ardour of youth, and during the two years spent by her at the Settlement
her infectious energy had quickened into life more than one of the paper
schemes evolved by Melancthon Robinson.
To the girl, in this early, instinctive stage of her life, problems were
nothing, individuals everything. The Catholic Church enjoins the duty of
personal charity, insisting upon its efficacy, both to those who give
and to those who receive, as opposed to that often magnificent
impersonal institutional philanthropy so much practised in this country.
Thus, Cecily's instinct in this direction had never been checked, and
the first sermon to which, as a child, she had listened with attention
and understanding had been one in which a Jesuit had insisted on the
duty of helping those who cannot, rather than those who can, help
themselves.
But even if Cecily Wake had never been taught the duty of charity, her
nature and instinct would have always impelled her to lift up those who
had fallen by the way, and to seek a cure for the apparently incurable.
Then, as sometimes happens, the burdens which others had refused became,
when she assumed them, surprisingly light; and often she felt abashed to
find with what approval, and openly-expressed admiration, her two
mentors at the Settlement, Philip Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret, regarded
some action or scheme which had cost her nothing but a happy thought and
a little hard work to carry through.
Cecily, an old-fashioned girl, was humble-minded, and far more easily
cast down by a word of admonition concerning some youthful fault or want
of method than lifted up by successes which sometimes seemed to those
about her to be of the nature of miracles.
Even now, on this the first morning of her holiday, she was struggling
painfully with the simple accounts of the day-nursery; for she had
promised Mrs. Pomfret to make out a detailed statement of what its cost
had actually been during the past month, and as she caught herself
repeating 'Five and four make fifty-four,' she felt heartily ashamed of
herself, knowing that Winfrith would indeed despise her if he knew how
difficult she found this simple task!
II
There came a sudden sound below her window, the muffled tread of steps
on the stone flags, and the tall, angular figure of Sir George Downing
strode into view. He was bare-headed, but about his square, powerful
shoulders hung the old-fashioned cloak which had attracted Wantley's
attention the afternoon before. When he reached the marble parapet
Cecily saw that he was carrying a large red despatch-box, which he
placed, and then leant upon, across the flat, weather-stained top of the
balustrade.
As she gazed at the motionless, almost stark figure, of which the head
was now sunk between the shoulders, Cecily felt that he strangely
disturbed her peaceful impression of the scene, and that, while in no
sense attracted by, or even specially interested in him, she was
curiously conscious of his silent, pervading presence.
She tried to remember what Lord Wantley had said to her the evening
before concerning this same fellow-guest, for after the two men had
joined their hostess on the terrace, Mrs. Robinson and Downing, leaving
the younger couple, had wandered off into the pine-wood which formed a
scented rampart between Monk's Eype, its terraces and gardens, and the
open down.
At once Wantley had spoken to his companion of the famous man, and of
his life-history, which he seemed to think must be familiar to Cecily as
it was to himself. 'If you are as romantic as all nice young ladies
should be, and as, I believe, they are,' he had said, 'you must feel
grateful to Mrs. Robinson for giving you the opportunity of meeting such
a remarkable man. Even I, _blasé_ as I am, felt a thrill to-day when I
realized that Persian Downing was actually here.' There had been a
twinkle in his eye as he spoke, but even so his listener had felt that
he meant what he said.
Like most young people, Cecily dreaded above all things being made to
look foolish, and so, not knowing what to answer--for she knew but
little of Persia and nothing at all of Sir George Downing--she had
wisely remained silent. But now she reddened as she remembered how
ignorant and how awkward she must have seemed to her dear Penelope's
cousin, and she made up her mind that she would this very day ask Mrs.
Robinson why Sir George Downing was famous, and why Lord Wantley
considered him specially interesting to the romantic.
Almost at once came the opportunity. There was a light tap at the door,
and as it opened Cecily saw Penelope, a finger to her lips, standing in
the wide corridor, of which the citron-coloured walls were hung with
large, sharply-defined black-and-white engravings of Italian scenery and
Roman temples.
For a moment they stood smiling at one another; then Mrs. Robinson
beckoned to the girl to come to her. 'I thought it just possible you
might already be up,' she whispered, 'and that you would like to come
down to the shore. Last night I promised Sir George Downing to take him
early to the Beach Room, which I have had arranged in order that he may
be able to work there undisturbed.' Then, as together they walked down
the corridor, she added: 'I am afraid he has been already waiting some
time, for I found it so difficult to dress myself--without Motey, I
mean!' and, with a graver note in her voice, 'It's rather terrible,' she
said, 'to think how dependent one may become on another human being.
Poor old Motey! from her point of view I could not possibly exist
without her. When I was abroad--last spring, I mean--I often got up
quite early to paint, but Motey always managed to be earlier--I never
could escape her! However, to-day I've succeeded, and you, child, are a
quite as efficient, and a much pleasanter chaperon.'
Cecily did not stop to wonder what Mrs. Robinson could mean by these
last words, uttered with strange whispering haste. She had at once
noticed, as people generally do notice any change in a loved or admired
presence, that her friend this morning looked unlike herself; but a
moment's thought had shown that this was owing to the way in which
Penelope had dressed her hair. The red-brown masses, instead of being
cunningly coiled above and round the face, had been thrust into a gold
net, thus altering in appearance the very shape of their owner's head,
of her slender neck, and even, or so it seemed to her companion, of the
delicate, cameo-like features. Cecily was not sure whether she approved
of the change, and Mrs. Robinson caught the look of doubt in the girl's
ingenuous eyes.
'Yes, I know I failed with my hair! In that one matter Motey will be
able to exult; but, fortunately, I remembered that I had a net. My
father had it made in Italy for mamma, and all through my childhood she
always wore it, I envying her the possession. One day when I was ill
(you know I was far too cosseted and pampered as a child) I said to her:
"I'm sure I should get well quicker if you would only lend me your gold
net!"--for I was a selfish, covetous little creature--and, of course,
she did give it me. But poor mamma never got back her net. After I was
tired of wearing it, or trying to wear it, I made a breastplate of it
for my favourite doll. I kept it more than twice seven years, and now
you see I've found a use for it!'
They were already halfway down the staircase which connected the upper
story of Monk's Eype with the hall, when came the earnest question:
'Penelope, I want to ask you--now--before we go out, why Sir George
Downing is famous, and what he has done to make him so?'
For a moment Mrs. Robinson made no answer. Then Cecily, her feet already
on the rug laid below the lowest marble stair, felt a firm hand on her
shoulder. Surprised, she turned and looked up. Penelope stood two or
three steps higher, and though the younger woman in time forgot the
actual words, she always remembered their gist, and the rapt, glowing
look, the deliberation, with which they had been uttered.
'I am glad you have asked me this. I meant--I wanted--to speak to you
of him yesterday, before you met him. For, Cecily'--the speaker's hand
leaned heavily on the girl's slight shoulder, and her next words, though
not uttered loudly, rang out as a confession of faith,--'if my
acquaintance with Sir George Downing has been short, and I admit that it
has been so, measured by time, his friendship and--and--his regard have
become very much to me. I reverence the greatness of his mind, of his
heart, and of his aims. Some day you will be proud to remember that you
once met him.'
A little colour suffused the speaker's face, seeming to intensify the
blue of her clear, unquailing eyes, to make memorable the words she had
said.
More indifferently she presently added: 'As to why he has lately become
what you call famous, ask the reason of my cousin, Lord Wantley. He will
give what is, I suppose, the true explanation--namely, that Sir George
Downing has of late years revealed himself as a brilliant diplomatist,
as well as a remarkable writer, able to describe, as no one else has
been able to do, the strange country which has become his place of work
and dwelling. Other circumstances have also led, almost by accident, to
his name becoming known, and his life in Persia discussed, by the sort
of people whose approval and interest confer fame.'
In silence they walked together across the hall to the glass door,
through which could be seen, darkly outlined against the line of sea,
the angular, bent figure of the man of whom they had been speaking.
And then Mrs. Robinson again opened her lips; again the clear voice
vibrated with intense, unaccustomed feeling: 'I should like to say one
more thing--Always remember that Sir George Downing has never sought
recognition; and though it has come at last, it has come too late. Too
late, I mean, to atone for a great injustice done to him as a young
man--too late to be now of any real value to him, unless it helps him
to achieve the objects he has in view.'
But though the words were uttered with a solemnity, a passion of
protest, which made the voice falter, when speaker and listener joined
Downing, it was Cecily whose hazel eyes were full of pity, Penelope
whose radiant and now softened beauty made the man, tired and seared
with life, whose cause she had been so gallantly defending, feel, as he
turned to meet her, once more young and glad.
That sunny morning hour altered, and in a measure transformed and
deepened, Cecily Wake's emotional nature. Then was she brought into
contact, for the first time, with the rarefied atmosphere of a great,
even if unsanctified passion, and that she was, and for some
considerable time remained, ignorant of its presence and nearness made
the effect on her mind and heart, if anything, more subtle and enduring.
To this convent-bred orphan girl Love was the lightsome pagan deity,
synonymous with Youth, whose arrows sometimes stung, perhaps even
fastened into the wound, but who threw no shadow as he walked the earth,
seeking the happy girls and boys who had leisure and opportunity--Cecily
was very human, and sometimes found time to sigh that she had
neither--to enjoy the pretty sport of love-making, with the logical
outcome of ideal marriage.
Life just then would have been a very different matter had she realized
that Cupid spent a considerable portion of his time in the neighbourhood
of the Settlement, and not always with the happiest results. Of course,
Cecily knew that even in Stratford East there were happy lovers, such,
for instance, the girl for whom she destined Penelope's wedding-ring;
but on the whole she was inclined to believe that Cupid reserved his
attentions, or at any rate his swiftest arrows, for those young people
who enjoy the double advantage of good birth and wealth. Even them she
would have thought more likely to meet with Cupid in the country than in
the town, just as the believer in fairyland finds it impossible to
associate the Little People with the London pavement, however much he
may hope to meet with them some day sporting in grassy glades or under
the hedgerows.
And so, while the other two were well aware that Love walked with them,
down the steep steps cut out of the soft blue lias rock, Cecily Wake was
utterly unconscious of his nearness, and this although the unseen
presence quickened her own sensibilities, and made her more ready to
receive new and unsought emotions.
III
To Mrs. Robinson, looking up into Downing's face, full of fearful,
exultant joy in his presence--she had not felt sure that he would really
come to Monk's Eype--the Beach Room, as arranged by her for her great
man, cried the truth aloud.
Very divergently does love act on different natures, sometimes, alas!
bringing out all that is grotesque and absurd in a human being, happily
more often evoking an intelligent tenderness which seeks to promote the
material happiness of the beloved.
Penelope had spent happy hours preparing the place where Downing, while
under her roof, was to do the work he had so much at heart, and nothing
had been omitted from the Beach Room which could minister to his
peculiar ideals of comfort.
On the large table, where twenty odd years before the little Penelope
Wantley and the dour-faced boy, David Winfrith, had set up their mimic
fleets of wooden boats, were many objects denoting how special had been
her care. Thus, in addition to the obvious requirements of a writer,
stood a replica of the old-fashioned opaquely-shaded reading-lamp which
she knew was always included in his travelling kit; close to the lamp
were simple appliances for the making of coffee, for she was aware of
Downing's almost morbid dislike to the presence, about him, of servants;
and, behind a tall eighteenth-century screen, brought from China to Wyke
Regis by some seafaring man a hundred years ago, was a camp-bed which
would enable the worker, if so minded, to remain with his work all
night.
Apart from these things, the large room had been left bare of ordinary
furniture, but across the uneven oak boards, never wholly free from
cobweb-like sheets of glittering grey sand, were strips of carpet, for
Penelope had remembered Downing's once telling her that he generally
came and went barefooted in that mysterious Persian dwelling--part
fortress, part palace--to which her thoughts now so often turned with a
strange mingling of dread and longing.
The man for whom all these preparations had been made, after passing
through the heavy wooden door which shut out wind, sand, and spray,
paused a moment and looked about him abstractedly.
Downing had always been curiously sensitive to the spirit and influence
of place, and the oddly-shaped bare room, partly excavated from the
cliff, into which for the moment no sun penetrated, struck him with
sudden chill and gloom. Mrs. Robinson, intently watching him, aware of
every flicker of feeling sweeping over the lean, strongly-accentuated
features, saw the momentary hesitation, the darkening of his face, and
there came over her, also, a feeling of sharp misgiving, a fear that all
was not well with him.
Since they had first looked into one another's eyes, Penelope had never
felt Downing to be so remote from herself as during the brief hours they
had spent together the evening before; and now he still seemed to be
mentally withdrawn, communing apart in a place whither she could not
follow him.
Standing there in the Beach Room, she asked herself whether, after all,
she had not been wrong to compel him to come to Monk's Eype, imprudent
to subject him, and herself, to such an ordeal. Yet, at the time she had
first proposed his coming, she had actually made herself believe that in
this way would be softened the blow she knew herself about to inflict on
those who loved her, and those whose respect she was eager to retain. 'I
want my mother to meet you,' she had said, in answer to a word of
hesitation, even, as she now saw looking back, of repugnance, on
Downing's part, 'for then, later, she will understand, even if she does
not approve, what I am about to do.'
And so at her bidding he had come; and now, this morning, they both
knew, and felt ashamed to know, how completely successful they had been
in concealing the truth from those about them.
That first night, when out of earshot of Lord Wantley and Cecily Wake,
Downing's words, uttered when they had found themselves alone for the
first time for many days, had been: 'I feel like a thief--nay, like a
murderer--here!' And yet, as she had eagerly reminded herself, he had
stolen nothing as yet--that is to say, nothing tangible--only her
heart--the heart which had proved so enigmatical a Will-o'-the-wisp to
many a seeker.
And now, returning up the steep steps, going up slowly, as if she were
bearing a burden, with Cecily silent by her side, respecting her mood,
Mrs. Robinson blamed herself, with something like anguish, for not
having been content to let Downing stay on in London. When there he had
written to her twice, sometimes three times, a day, letters which seemed
to bring him much nearer to herself than she felt him to be now, for
they had been of ardent prevision of a time when they would be always
together, side by side, heart to heart, in that far-away country which
had become to her full of mysterious glamour and delight.
She stayed her steps, and, turning, looked at the sea with a long
wavering look, as she remembered, and again with a feeling of shame,
though she was glad to know that this could not be in any sense shared
by Downing, that one reason she had urged for his coming had been the
nearness to Monk's Eype of David Winfrith's home.
She had become aware that, by lingering with her so long in France while
on his way to England, Downing had lost a chance of furthering his
political and financial projects.
The former Government had consisted of men who, even if not friendly to
himself, sympathized with his aims; but now, among the members of the
incoming Liberal Ministry, Persian Downing was looked at with suspicion,
and regarded as one who desired to embroil his country with the great
European Power who is only dangerous, according to Liberal tradition,
when aggressively aroused from her political torpor.
Winfrith alone among the new men was known to have other views. He had
in a sense made his name by a book concerning Asian problems, and Mrs.
Robinson, with feminine shrewdness, felt sure that he would not be able
to resist the chance of meeting, in an informal way, the man who
admittedly knew more of Persia and its rulers than any Englishman alive.
No woman, save, perhaps, she who only lives to make a sport of men,
cares to be present as third at the meeting of a man who loves her and
of the man whom she herself loves. And so Penelope had arranged in her
own mind that her cousin, Lord Wantley, should be the link between
Winfrith and Downing.
She had, however, meant to prepare the way, and it was with that object
in view that she had asked Winfrith to ride with her the day before. But
to her surprise, almost to her indignation and self-contempt, she had
found that the name of Sir George Downing, from her to her old friend,
had literally stuck in her throat, and she had been relieved when she
found that Winfrith was to be for some days absent from the
neighbourhood.
When she and Cecily were once more standing on the broad terrace spread
out before the villa, Mrs. Robinson broke her long silence. Resolutely
she put from her the painful thoughts and the perplexities which had
possessed her, and 'It must be very nice,' she said, 'to be a good girl.
I was always a very naughty girl; but I am good now, and I want to beg
your pardon for having been so very horrid to you yesterday--I mean
about the ring.'
'Be horrid to me again,' said Cecily, 'but never beg my pardon; I don't
like to hear you do it. Besides,' she added quaintly, 'you can never be
really horrid to me, for I shall not let you be.'
'You are a comfortable friend, child, if even rather absurd at times.
But now about this morning. I have arranged for Ludovic to drive you and
Miss Theresa over to the monastery. We won't mention the plan to mamma,
because she thinks Beacon Abbas the abiding-place of seven devils.'
'I'm afraid Aunt Theresa won't be well enough to get up to-day; but, of
course, I can go to church by myself.'
'In that case, you and Ludovic can walk across the cliffs. It will be a
good opportunity for you to describe to him the delights of the
Settlement, and perhaps to make him feel a little ashamed of having done
so little to help us.'
They were now close to the open windows of the dining-room, and Cecily
could see the stately figure of Lady Wantley bending over a small table,
on which lay, open, a large Bible.
IV
An hour later an oddly-assorted couple set out for Beacon Abbas, bound
for the monastery which had been so great an eyesore to the famous
Evangelical peer.
Wantley's critical taste soon found secret fault with the blue-and-white
check cotton gown, which, if it intensified the wearer's pure colouring,
was surely unsuited to do battle with sea-wind; the sailor-hat, however,
was more what the young man, to himself, called _de circonstance_; but
he groaned inwardly over the clumsy shape of the brown laced shoes which
encased what he divined to be the pretty, slender feet of his companion,
and he thoroughly disapproved of a shabby little black bag fastened to
her belt.
It must be admitted that Cecily did not compare, outwardly at least,
very favourably with the three girls who had formed part of the
house-party he had left the day before, though even in them, as regarded
their minds, however, not their appearance, Wantley had found plenty to
cavil at.
Perhaps Cecily's critic would have been surprised and rather nettled,
had he known that he also was undergoing a keen scrutiny, and one not
altogether favourable, from the candid eyes which he had soon decided
were the best feature in the girl's serious face.
Wantley's loosely-knit figure, of only medium height, clad in what even
she realized were somewhat unconventional clothes for church-going; the
short pointed beard (Cecily felt sure that only old gentlemen were
entitled to wear beards); the grey eyes twinkling under light eyebrows;
the nondescript light-brown hair brushed sleekly across the lined
forehead--these did not compose a whole according well with her ideal of
young manhood. But, after all, Penelope had declared her cousin to be
quite clever enough to be of use to the Settlement. There, as Cecily
knew well, even the most unpromising educated human material could
almost always be made useful: already, in imagination, she saw Lord
Wantley teaching an evening class of youths to draw, for surely Mrs.
Robinson had said he was a good artist.
As they walked along the path through the pine-wood, the fresh, keen
air, the sunlight falling slantwise through the pine-trees, softened the
young man's mood. He felt inclined to bless the girl for her silence:
inpertinent appreciation of nature was one of the traits he found most
odious in those of his young countrywomen with whom fate--and
Penelope--had hitherto brought him in contact. Wantley far preferred the
honest--but, oh, how rare!--girl Philistines who bluntly avowed
themselves blind to the charms of sea, land, and sky.
Not that he felt inclined to include Cecily Wake among these. He had
seen her face when a sudden bend of the path had revealed the long
turning coast-line, and spread the wide seas below them; but she had
uttered no exclamation, refrained from trite remark, and so the heart of
this rather fantastic young man warmed to her.
'And now,' he said, holding open the wicket-gate which led from the wood
to the open stretch of down--'and now that the moment has come to reveal
our mutual aversions, I will begin by confessing that quite my pet
aversion in life has long been your Settlement.' Then, as his companion
only reddened by way of answer, he altered his tone, and added more
seriously: 'I esteem all that I have ever heard of Melancthon Robinson.
I never saw him, for I was in America both when the marriage and when
his death took place, but I have no patience with sham playing at
Christian Socialism. Of course, I know that the Melancthon Settlement
was but a pioneer of better things, and that it has led the way to the
establishment of several more practical undertakings.' (Here Cecily bit
her lip.) 'But when I think of all that my uncle--I of course mean
Penelope's father--accomplished in the way of really benefiting and
bettering the condition of our working people, and that, I imagine,
without ever even seeing the East End--when I consider how he would have
regarded the Melancthon Settlement----'
He smiled a rather ugly smile, but still Cecily Wake made no answer.
Nettled by her silence, he added suddenly: 'I will give you an instance
of what I mean. You know my cousin Penelope?'
For the first time Wantley realized that the girl walking by his side
had a peculiarly charming smile, and he altered, because of that smile,
what he had meant to be a franker expression of feeling.
'Now, honestly, Miss Wake, can you imagine Penelope, even in intention,
living an austere life among the London poor, and occasionally pulling
them up by the roots to see if they were growing better under her
earnest guidance? The fact that young Robinson thought it possible that
she should ever do so added, to my mind, a touch of absurdity to what
was, after all, a sad business.'
'And yet he and she did really live and work at the Settlement,'
objected Cecily quietly, and he was rather disappointed that she showed
so little vehemence in defence of her friend.
'That's true, tho' I believe Penelope was very often away during the
four months the marriage lasted, it was a new experience, and we all
enjoy--Penelope more than most of us, perhaps--new experiences and new
emotions.'
'But our people'--the girl spoke as if she had not heard his last words,
and Wantley was pleased with the low, rounded quality of her voice--'our
people, those of them who are still there, for you know that they come
and go in that part of London, have never forgotten that time: I mean
when Penelope lived at the Settlement. Perhaps you think that poor
people do not care about beautiful things; if so, you would be surprised
to see how those to whom Mrs. Robinson gave drawings treasure them, how
they ask after her, how eager they are to see her!'
'She doesn't often give them that pleasure.' The retort was too obvious.
He delighted in being Devil's Advocate, and it amused him to see the
colour at last come and go in cheeks still pale from too long
acquaintance with London air.
But the time had come to call a truce. The little town of Wyke Regis lay
below them, looking, even to the boats lying on the sea, like a medieval
map, and, for some time before they reached the road leading to the
monastery, they could see streams of people passing through the great
doors, which, forming a true French _porte-cochère_, gave access first
to monastic buildings built round three sides of a vast paved courtyard,
and then to the spacious gardens and orchard, where jutted out the
curious miniature basilica which had been the pride and pleasure of the
Popish Lord Wantley.
To Cecily's surprise, perhaps a little to her disappointment, Wantley
refused to accompany her into the chapel; instead, he remained outside
in the sunshine, smoking one cigarette after another, and amusing
himself by deciphering the brief inscriptions on the plain slabs of
stone which, sunk into the grass under and among the apple-trees, marked
the graves of two generations of French monks.
Meanwhile, Cecily Wake--for they had arrived some minutes late, and Wyke
Regis was now full of summer visitors--knelt down at the back of the
chapel, among the curiously miscellaneous crowd of men and women
generally to be found gathered together just within the doors of a
Catholic place of worship.
After she had said her simple prayers, not omitting the three requests,
one of which at least she trusted would be granted, according to the old
belief that such a favour is extended to those who enter for the first
time a duly consecrated church, Cecily, during the chanting of the
Creed, allowed her eyes to wander sufficiently to enjoy the singular
beauty and ornate splendour of the monastery chapel.
She soon saw which were the windows connected with Penelope's family. On
the one was emblazoned the mailed figure of St. George crushing the
dragon, presumably of Wantley, under his spurred heel. Obviously of the
same period was the St. Cecilia, who, sitting at an old-fashioned
Italian spinet, seemed to be charming the ears of two musically-minded
angels. More crude in colouring, and more utilitarian in design, was the
figure of good St. Louis dispensing justice under the traditional rood:
this last window, as the girl was aware, was that which the young man,
who had refused to come into the chapel, had raised to the memory of his
own father.
Just as the bell rang, warning those not in sight of the high-altar that
the most solemn portion of the Mass was about to begin, there arose,
close to where Cecily was kneeling with her face buried in her hands,
the loud, discordant cry of an ailing child.
Various pious persons at once turned and threw shocked glances at a
woman who, alone seated among the kneeling throng, and herself nodding
with fatigue, was shifting from one arm to another a fat curly-headed
little boy, whom Cecily, now well versed in such lore, instinctively
guessed to be about two years old.
A few minutes later, Wantley, tired of waiting in the deserted orchard,
pushed open the red-baize door.
At first he saw nothing; then, when his eyes had grown accustomed to the
dimmer light, he became aware that at the end of a little lane of
people, and outlined against a rose-coloured marble pillar, stood the
blue-clad figure of a young woman holding to her breast a little child,
the two thus forming the immemorial group which has kept its hold on the
imagination of Christendom throughout the ages.
Cecily was swaying rhythmically, now forward, now backward, her head
bent over that of the child. She did not see Wantley, being wholly
absorbed in her task of quieting and comforting the little creature now
cradled in her arms; but he, as he looked at her, felt as if he then saw
her for the first time.
Over the whole scene brooded a curious stillness, the stillness with
which he was already familiar, owing to his haunting, when abroad, the
long Sunday services held alike in the great cathedrals and the little
village churches of France and Italy.
Long years afterwards, Wantley, happening to be present at one of those
futile conversations in which are discussed the first meetings of those
destined to know each other well, in answer to the somewhat impertinent
question, uttered, however, by a youthful and therefore privileged
voice, 'And do you, Lord Wantley, remember your first meeting with her?'
answered in all good faith: 'I first saw her in our Roman Catholic
chapel at Beacon Abbas, nursing a little beggar child. She wore a bright
blue frock, and what I took to be a halo; as a matter of fact it was a
sailor-hat!' And then, from more than one of those that were present,
came the words, 'How nice! and how exactly what one would have expected
from what one knows of her now!' And Wantley, happy Wantley, saw no
cause to say them nay.
Yet the half-hour which followed might well have effaced the memory of a
more tangible vision, and have impressed a man less whimsical and
easy-going as almost intolerably prosaic.
After the congregation had dispersed, he had had to wait at a short
distance, but not, as he congratulated himself, out of earshot, while
Cecily Wake and the Irish mother of the ailing child held what seemed to
be an interminable conversation. The listener then became acquainted,
for the first time, with certain not uninteresting data as to how the
citizens of our great Empire are prepared for their struggle through
existence. He learnt that the child's first meal that Sunday,
administered by the advice of 'a very knowing woman,' had consisted of a
half-glass of the best bitters and of a biscuit; he overheard Cecily's
realistic if gently worded description of what effect this diet was
likely to have on an unfortunate baby's interior, and he admired the way
in which the speaker mingled practical advice with praise of the poor
little creature's prettiness.
Finally, from the shabby waist bag Wantley had looked at with so much
disfavour a couple of hours before, Cecily took a leaflet, which she
handed to the woman, the gift being softened by the addition of a
two-shilling piece. He heard her say, 'This is milk money; you will not
spend it on anything else, will you?' And there had followed a few
mysterious sentences, uttered in lower tones, of which Wantley had
caught the words, 'afternoon,' 'Benediction,' 'fits,' and 'doctor.'
At last the woman had shuffled away with her now quiescent burden, and
as they passed through the monastery gates Wantley saw with concern that
his companion looked pale and tired. 'If you propose coming back here
this afternoon, and seeing that woman again,' he said with kindly
authority, 'I will drive you over. Perhaps by that time your aunt will
be well enough to come too.'
'Oh, I hope not!' Cecily's expression of dismay was involuntary. 'Aunt
Theresa only likes my helping poor people whom I know about already,'
she explained.
'And does she approve of the Settlement?' He could not forbear the
question. The girl blushed and shook her head, smiling. 'Of course not.
She feels about the Settlement much as you do, only she thinks all that
sort of work ought to be left to nuns. But Mrs. Robinson persuaded the
Mother Superior of the convent where I was brought up, to write and tell
Aunt Theresa that she might at least let me try and see if I could do
what Penelope proposed.'
'I think that Penelope has had decidedly the best of the bargain,'
Wantley rejoined dryly; for now, looking at his companion with new eyes
of solicitude, he saw the effects of that work which he also thought
might well be left to nuns, or at any rate to women older than Cecily.
But he was somewhat taken aback when, encouraged by the kindly glance,
his young companion exclaimed impulsively, 'Why are you--what makes
you--so unfair to Penelope? And why have you always refused to have
anything to do with the Settlement?'
Wantley turned and looked at her rather grimly. 'So ho!' he said to
himself, 'my shortcomings have evidently been revealed. That's too bad!'
And then, aloud, he answered, quite gravely, 'If I am unfair to my
cousin--I mean, of course, unduly so--she is suffering for the sins of
her parents, or perhaps I should say of her father, by whom, as you are
possibly aware, I was adopted in a sort of fashion after the death of my
mother.'
Cecily looked at him surprised. To her apprehension, the great Lord
Wantley had been one of those men who, in another and a holier age,
might well have been canonized. Of Lady Wantley she knew, or thought she
knew, less--indeed, they had never met till the evening before; but,
while admitting to herself her own complete lack of comprehension of the
older woman's peculiar religious views, Cecily was prepared to idealize
her in the double character of the famous philanthropist's widow and as
Penelope's mother.
But Wantley, his easy-going nature now singularly moved and stirred, was
determined not to spare her.
In short, dry sentences he told her of his happy childhood, of his
father's conversion to the Catholic faith, followed shortly after by
that now ruined father's death. Of Lord Wantley's reluctant adoption of
him, coupled with a refusal to give him the education he had himself
received, and which is, in a sense, the birthright of certain
Englishmen.
He described, shortly indeed, but with a sharpness born of long-endured
bitterness, the years which he had spent as an idle member of Lord and
Lady Wantley's large household. Instinct warned him to pass lightly over
Penelope's share in his early troubles and humiliations; but there were
things in his recital which recalled, as almost every moving story
generally does recall, episodes in the listener's own life; and when at
last he looked at her, partly ashamed of his burst of confidence, he saw
that he had been successful in presenting his side of the story, more,
that Cecily was looking at him with new-born sympathy and interest.
Then a slight accident turned the current of their thoughts into a
brighter and a lighter channel. Wantley suddenly dropped the heavy old
Prayer-Book of which he had taken charge, and, as it fell on to the
path, what seemed a page detached itself, and, fluttering out, was
caught between the tiny twigs of a briar-bush. As he bent to rescue and
restore, he could not help seeing that what was lying face upwards on
the mass of little leaves was one of the 'Holy Pictures' so often placed
by Catholics as markers in their books of devotion.
On the upper half of the small white card had been pasted an inch-square
engraving of a little child guided by its guardian angel, while
underneath was rudely written, in a childish handwriting, each word so
formed as to resemble printing: 'Dear Angel, help me to-day to practise
Obedience, Punctuality, and Kindness, for the love of the Holy Child and
His blessed Mother.'
As Wantley placed the little card back again between the leaves of
Cecily's shabby Prayer-Book, of which the title, 'The Path to Heaven,'
pleased him by its unquestioning directness, he said, smiling, 'And may
I ask if you still believe, Miss Wake, in the actual constant presence,
near to you, of a guardian angel?'
'Of course I do!' She looked at him with wide-open eyes of surprise.
'But,' he said deferentially, 'isn't that a little awkward sometimes,
even for you?'
Cecily made what was for her a great mental leap.
'Isn't everything--of that sort--a little awkward, sometimes, for all of
us?' she asked.
'Yes,' he said; 'there must be times when guardian angels must feel
inclined to edge off somewhat, eh? or do you think they fly off for rest
and change when their charges annoy them by being contrary?'
Cecily looked at him doubtfully. He spoke quite seriously, but she
thought it just possible that he was laughing at her. 'I suppose that
they do not remain long with very wicked people,' she said at last, and
he saw a frown of perplexity pucker her white forehead. 'But I'm sure
they do all they can to keep us good.'
'I wonder,' he said reflectively, 'what limitation you would put to
their power? To give you an instance; you admit that had your aunt been
at church to-day you could not have taken charge of that poor baby, or
afterwards helped, as you most certainly did help, its tired mother.
Now, do you suppose that this baby's guardian angel provoked, by some
way best known to itself, your excellent aunt's headache?'
'Laugh at me,' she said, smiling a little vexedly, 'but not at our own
or at other people's guardian angels; for I suppose even you would admit
that if they are with us they have feelings which may be hurt?'
As he held the wicket-gate open for her to pass through from the cliff
path into the pine-wood boundary of Monk's Eype, Wantley said suddenly:
'I wonder if you have ever read a story called "In the Wrong Paradise"?'
and as Cecily shook her head he added: 'Then never do so! I am sure your
guardian angel would not at all approve of the moral it sets out to
convey.' And then, just as she was going up from the flagged terrace
into the central hall of the villa, he said, the laughter dying wholly
out of his voice: 'And if I may do so, let me tell you that I hope, with
all my heart, that I may ultimately be found worthy to enter whichever
may happen to be _your_ Paradise.'
A look of great kindness, of understanding more than he had perhaps
meant to convey, came over Cecily's candid eyes. She made no answer, but
as she ran upstairs to her aunt's room she said to herself: 'Poor
fellow! Of course he means the Church. Oh, I must pray hard that he may
some day find his way to his father's Paradise and mine!'
She found her aunt lying down, and apparently asleep, on the broad
comfortable old sofa which was placed across the bottom of the bed,
opposite the window. The pretty room, hung with blue Irish linen forming
an admirable background to Mrs. Robinson's fine water-colours, looked
delightfully cool to the girl's tired eyes; the blinds had been pulled
down, and Cecily, walking on tiptoe past her aunt, sat down in a low
easy-chair, content to wait quietly till Miss Wake should open her eyes.
But the long walk, the sea-air, had made the watcher drowsy, and soon
Cecily also was asleep.
Then, within the next few moments, a strange thing happened to Cecily
Wake.
After what seemed a long time, she apparently awoke to a sight which
struck her as odd rather than unexpected.
On the elder Miss Wake's chest, nestling down among the folds of her
white shawl, sat a tiny angel, whose chubby countenance was quite
familiar to Cecily, as his brown curls and pale, sensitive face
recalled, though, of course, in a benignant and peaceful sense, the
little child whom she had soothed in church.
Cecily tried to get up and go to her aunt's assistance but something
seemed to hold her down in her chair. 'Please go away,' she heard
herself say, quite politely, but with considerable urgency. 'How can my
aunt's headache get better as long as you sit there? Besides, your
little charge is much in need of you!'
But the angelic visitor made no response, and she noticed, with dismay,
that he wore on his chubby little face the look of intelligent obstinacy
so often seen on the faces of very young children.
Again she said: 'Please go away. You are really not wanted here'--as a
concession she added, 'any more!' But he only flapped his little wings
defiantly, and seemed to settle down among the warm folds of Miss
Theresa's shawl as if arranging for a long stay.
Cecily was in despair; and she began to think that everything was
strangely topsy-turvy. 'Perhaps,' she said to herself, 'he only
understands Irish, so I'll try him with French!' and, speaking the
language, to her so dear, which lends itself so singularly well to
courteous entreaty, she again begged her aunt's strange guest to take
his departure, pointing out that his mission was indeed fulfilled, and
there were reasons, imperative reasons, why he should go away. Then, to
her dismay, the little angel's eyes filled with tears, and at last he
spoke impetuously: 'Mais oui, j'ai de quoi!' he cried angrily in an
eager childish treble.
Cecily felt herself blush as she answered hurriedly, soothingly: 'Mais,
petit ange, mon cher petit ange, je ne dis pas le contraire!' and she
had hardly time to add to herself, 'Then he _was_ Irish, after all,'
when the blinds, which were drawn down, all flapped together, although,
as Cecily often assured herself afterwards, there was absolutely no
wind, and the girl, rubbing her eyes, once more saw the white shawl as
usual crossed over primly on her aunt's chest, while Miss Theresa Wake,
opening her eyes, suddenly exclaimed: 'Is that you, my dear? I have not
been asleep exactly, but I now feel much better and less oppressed than
I did a few moments ago.'
Cecily never told her curious experience, but a day came when the
dearest of all voices in the world asked imperiously: 'Mammy, do angels
ever come and talk to people? I mean to usual people, not to saints and
martyrs. Of course, I _know_, they do to _them_.' And Cecily answered,
very soberly: 'I think they do sometimes, my Ludovic, for an angel once
came and talked to me.' But not even to this questioner did she reveal
what the angelic visitant had said to her.