WHILE the sun was shining cheerily at Brighton the rain was pouring down
drearily in London, Acacia Grove looking its very worst under the leaden
sky; the roadway a sea of mud, the leafless branches of the trees
dripping and streaming, the evergreen shrubs in the scrubby gardens none
the less dirty for their washing; even the sharp rat-tat, rat-tat, of
the postman as he went from house to house sounding dismal, as if all
the letters he bore must announce death or disaster.
Squire had finished his frugal breakfast, and stood, newspaper in hand,
looking aimlessly out of the window. The trouble through which he was
passing had left no trace or mark upon his face, but there was a
restless misery in his eyes. Sighing heavily, he held up the paper and
glanced at it without purpose, almost unconsciously. “Sunshine at
Brighton” was the heading of an article down which his eye ran without
comprehension until Maddison’s name fixed his attention:—“Another
well-known face occasionally seen on the King’s Road is that of Mr.
George Maddison, the A.R.A., who is staying at his cottage at
Rottingdean.”
He crushed the paper angrily and threw it aside. They were at
Rottingdean, then; that was why his watch upon the studio had been vain.
They had gone away, trusting to his not being able to trace them.
Since his interview with Maddison, Squire’s life had been a restless
dream; every purpose had left him save one, the finding of Marian.
Despite the upshot of his last conversation with her, he still felt
confident that he could rescue her from the terrible life she was
leading. Hour after hour, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, he had
watched the studio in hopes of meeting her. He had seen Maddison several
times, but had avoided him; it was Marian with whom he desired to speak.
He had tried to track Maddison more than once, but one accident or
another had baffled him. Then Maddison appeared no more, and he had had
to wait upon “the skirts of happy chance,” and now fate had helped him.
Still he hesitated, for by several incidents it had been borne in upon
him that to save one soul he was neglecting many others intrusted to his
care—sinners, some of them, greater even than Marian. Could he feel
assured that he was pursuing the right course? That there was no element
of self in his eagerness to find Marian and to save her? Would he have
been so eager had she been a stranger to him? He was torn this way and
that by the doubts which assailed him.
In the efficacy of prayer he had absolute faith, and consternation had
assailed him when he found that prayer brought no relief to his agony or
solution of his difficulty. He had asked for guidance, and God had not
granted him any. Heretofore prayer had always brought him peace; not
realizing that he had never before been in distress or difficulty, it
shocked, then stunned him, that no response apparently was to be made to
his faithful pleading for assistance. It is said that the extreme terror
caused by an earthquake arises from the failure of the one last resort
of safety when all else is crumbling, by the trembling, the shattering
beneath the feet of the solid earth itself; when that fails no refuge is
left. It was thus with Squire now; misery might be his lot, but not
terror at any disaster or misfortune, for “God’s in His heaven, all’s
right with the world”—that had been his faith. But was God in His
heaven? He had raised his voice to heaven and had prayed for succor, but
there had been no answer: had God forgotten him? There was no sense of
rebellion or of protest in his heart, only piteous helplessness and
loneliness. His spiritual pride had died; humility had taken its place,
but mingled with it was an almost insane dread that unwittingly he had
sinned so heinously that God had cast him away. As he had knelt this
morning, words of prayer had refused to come. He had striven to say “Our
Father Which art in Heaven,” but his trembling lips had stumbled; in
agony he had buried his face in his hands and wept.
There was a friend whom more than once he had thought of consulting, but
a sense of shame had restrained him. Now in this crisis of his affairs,
he felt that no other course lay open to him, and that if it was in any
way possible he should act upon whatsoever advice should be given him.
He wrapped himself in his heavy mackintosh, pressed down his soft felt
hat closely, and set out to walk toward Dulwich through the wind and the
rain. The raw air at first chilled then stimulated him and he made his
way along rapidly. Gradually the ferment in his mind was allayed, and
when he arrived in sight of his friend’s house, he almost hesitated as
to going in; the physical exercise seemed to have cleared his mental
horizon. But the half-hesitation brought back the feeling of
helplessness from which he was trying to escape and he hurried on.
“Why, Edward! You! It’s an age since you came my way; I thought you’d
forgotten me. Give the girl your things—so—come along in here and warm
yourself by the fire. You don’t know how glad I am to see you.
But—you’re not looking well, though you’ve got a color.”
The speaker was a middle-aged, thin little woman, with a sharp face,
stamped deeply by the hand of pain, with deep-set, kindly gray eyes and
a mouth that seemed formed so as to be able to give utterance only to
words of kindness or of consolation.
She sat down opposite him.
“Aren’t you well, Edward?”
“Yes, yes, thank you, I’m quite well in body. I see—you haven’t heard?”
“Heard? Marian’s all well, I hope?”
He did not answer, and after a searching look at him, she went on:
“She’s not ill? If she is, why _didn’t_ you send for me, or come for
me?”
“No, no, no, it’s not that,” he broke in, vehemently; “it’s something
far worse than that. I scarcely know how to tell you. She’s—gone
away—away from me.”
“Gone away? What do you mean, Edward?”
“We weren’t happy together; at least, she wasn’t happy; she went away
and she’s living a life of sin with another man. Oh, what am I to do?”
“This is terrible. My poor boy, my poor boy.”
She went quietly over to him, and putting her arm round his shoulder,
drew his head gently to her. Then his pent-up suffering broke its bonds,
and he sobbed bitterly as he rested there, near that kind heart to which
no one in sorrow had ever appealed in vain.
“My poor boy, why didn’t you come to me sooner?—instead of fighting it
out all alone, though not alone, for I know you have faith in the great
Comforter.”
He held her hand tightly as he began, at first brokenly, to tell her all
that had happened. She knit her brows as she listened, and when he
ceased speaking, drew her hand gently from him, and drew back.
“What am I to do?” he repeated.
“Let me think a minute. But first, Edward, let us pray.”
They kneeled down side by side at the table, and she prayed simply,
uttering the petition of a helpless child to her Father, asking that
this sorely-tried man and herself, his weak friend, might be guided
rightly in all they should do and that the way might be made plain to
them. The words brought comfort to him.
“Now, Edward,” she said, “I know you do not expect me to say anything
except exactly what I believe to be true. I did not often see you and
Marian together, but I sometimes wondered if in your own strength you
did not sometimes fail to make allowances for her weakness.”
“I’ve tried to see my own faults. I’ve no doubt I am much to blame. But
does the knowledge of that help me now? It would help me if I could
bring Marian back to me—but it’s not that which has made me come to you
for advice. What am I to _do_? Am I to go down to Rottingdean, see
Marian and make another appeal to her? And if I do and if I fail—am I
to try again and again? To do that means that I should be neglecting my
work. Don’t you see?”
He then went on to tell her, what he had not yet mentioned, of the
horrible terror that had struck him when he found that God, as he
believed, was deaf to his prayers.
“Now,” he said—“now you understand all. Can you help me?”
“I don’t know. One thing I know we must do if we are to help her. We
must try to forget all about you and to put ourselves in her place as
far as we can. Strangely enough, I fancy perhaps I can do that better
than you could. I know you better than you know yourself and so can
possibly see you more as she sees you; then I’m a woman and so, though I
don’t know half as much about her as you do, it’s more than likely that
I understand her a great deal better. You say she changed greatly, after
you had been some time in town, from what she had been in the country?”
“Yes, yes; she seemed to me to become utterly different.”
“Just so. But of course she didn’t change at all—she only found
herself. She had been simply an artificial, vicarage-bred girl; she
became a woman. She never did anything very wrong at the vicarage—there
wasn’t any temptation. In town she picked up some of the fruit of the
tree and began to nibble at it and found it sweet. She never really
loved you—I’m sorry, but I must hurt you if I’m to help you—it wasn’t
till she came up here that she realized that she was a woman; she had no
love for you, no interest in the life you set before her, no faith; she
is young, beautiful, full of life and energy and strong emotions—so far
all’s simple enough. But what further? Is she really wicked or only a
sinner? If she’s really through and through bad, I know no power on
earth can help her or save her. If she’s only a sinner she will save
herself. At any rate what _can_ you do or say that you haven’t tried?
She knows you love her and would forgive her—I don’t see, Edward, what
can be gained by your going down to Rottingdean. I daresay you think I’m
talking hardly, but I’m not. I’m only being practical, and there’s no
reason I’ve ever heard of why one shouldn’t be truly religious at the
same time. God doesn’t love fools.”
“Perhaps that’s why He doesn’t love me.”
She did not answer, but for a moment a smile hovered at the corners of
her mouth.
“You good people are so very difficult to help,” she went on; “you’re
always so utterly other-worldish that when you’ve got to worry out some
worldly trouble you don’t know what on earth to do, and that being the
case—pray for help, instead of for strength to help yourself. What to
do? It seems to me your way is plain: go back to your work; work hard;
work yourself sick if you like, and instead of praying so much for
yourself, pray more for her.”
He turned away from her, and looked out at the gray rain. She had spoken
almost sharply, but the soft tenderness in her eyes as she looked
pityingly at him betrayed that the sharpness lay only in the expression
of the comfort she had offered him.
“I feel that you are right,” he said, going back to her and holding out
his hands, into which she gave hers; “thank you. I’ll try.”