Before going to my father's house I went to the Bishop's. Bishop's Court
is at the other side of the island, and it was noon before I drove under
its tall elm trees, in which a vast concourse of crows seemed to be
holding a sort of general congress.
The Bishop was then at his luncheon, and after luncheon (so his liveried
servant told me) he usually took a siesta. I have always thought it was
unfortunate for my interview that it came between his food and his
sleep.
The little reception-room into which I was shown was luxuriously, not to
say gorgeously, appointed, with easy chairs and sofas, a large portrait
of the Pope, signed by the Holy Father himself, and a number of pictures
of great people of all kinds--dukes, marquises, lords, counts--as well
as photographs of fashionable ladies in low dress inscribed in several
languages to "My dear Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ellan."
The Bishop came to me after a few minutes, smiling and apparently at
peace with all the world. Except that he wore a biretta he was
dressed--as in Rome--in his long black soutane with its innumerable
buttons, his silver-buckled shoes, his heavy gold chain and jewelled
cross.
He welcomed me in his smooth and suave manner, asking if he could offer
me a little refreshment; but, too full of my mission to think of eating
and drinking, I plunged immediately into the object of my visit.
"Monsignor," I said, "I am in great trouble. It is about my marriage."
The smile was smitten away from the Bishop's face by this announcement.
"I am sorry," he said. "Nothing serious, I trust?"
I told him it was very serious, and straightway I began on the spiritual
part of my grievance--that my husband did not love me, that he loved
another woman, that the sacred sacrament of my marriage. . . .
"Wait," said the Bishop, and he rose to close the window, for the
clamour of the crows was deafening--a trial must have been going on in
the trees. Returning to his seat he said:
"Dear lady, you must understand that there is one offence, and only one,
which in all Christian countries and civilised communities is considered
sufficient to constitute a real and tangible grievance. Have you any
evidence of that?"
I knew what he meant and I felt myself colouring to the roots of my
hair. But gulping down my shame I recounted the story of the scene in
Paris and gave a report of my maid's charges and surmises.
"Humph!" said the Bishop, and I saw in a moment that he was going to
belittle my proofs.
"Little or no evidence of your own, apparently. Chiefly that of your
maid. And ladies' maids are notorious mischief-makers."
"But it's true," I said. "My husband will not deny it. He cannot."
"So far as I am able to observe what passes in the world," said the
Bishop, "men in such circumstances always can and do deny it."
I felt my hands growing moist under my gloves. I thought the Bishop was
trying to be blind to what he did not wish to see.
"But I'm right, I'm sure I'm right," I said.
"Well, assuming you _are_ right, what is it, dear lady, that you wish me
to do?"
For some minutes I felt like a fool, but I stammered out at length that
I had come for his direction and to learn what relief the Church could
give me.
"H'm!" said the Bishop, and then crossing one leg over the other, and
fumbling the silver buckle of his shoe, he said:
"The Church, dear lady, does indeed provide alleviation in cases of dire
necessity. It provides the relief of separation--always deploring the
necessity and hoping for ultimate reconciliation. But to sanction the
separation of a wife from her husband because--pardon me, I do not say
this is your case--she finds that he does not please her, or
because--again I do not say this is your case--she fancies that somebody
else pleases her better. . . ."
"Monsignor," I said, feeling hot and dizzy, "we need not discuss
separation. I am thinking of something much more serious."
Never shall I forget the expression of the Bishop's face. He looked
aghast.
"My good lady, surely you are not thinking of divorce?"
I think my head must have dropped as in silent assent, for in a
peremptory and condemnatory manner the Bishop took me to task, asking if
I did not know that the Catholic Church did not recognise divorce under
any circumstances, and if I had forgotten what the Holy Father himself
(pointing up to the portrait) had said to me--that when I entered into
the solemn contract of holy matrimony I was to do so in the full
consciousness that it could not be broken but by death.
"The love in which husband and wife contract to hold each other in holy
wedlock is typified by the love of Christ for His Church, and as the one
can never be broken, neither can the other."
"But my husband does not love me," I said. "Neither do I love him, and
therefore the contract between us is broken already."
The Bishop was very severe with me for this, telling me that as a good
child of the Church, I must never, never say that again, for though
marriage was a contract it differed from all other contracts whatsoever.
"When you married your husband, dear lady, you were bound to him not by
your own act alone, but by a mysterious power from which neither of you
can ever free yourself. The power that united you was God, and whom God
has joined together no man may put asunder."
I felt my head drooping. The Bishop was saying what I had always been
taught, though in the torment of my trouble and the fierce fire of my
temptation I had forgotten it.
"The civil law _might_ divorce you," continued the Bishop. "I don't
know--I can say nothing about that. But it would have _no right_ to do
so because the law can have no right to undo what God Himself has done."
Oh, it was cruel! I felt as if the future of my life were darkening
before me--as if the iron bars of a prison were closing upon me, and
fetters were being fixed on every limb.
"But even if the civil law _could_ and _would_ divorce you," said the
Bishop, "think of the injury you would be inflicting on the Church.
Yours was what is called a mixed marriage, and the Church does not
favour such marriages, but it consented in this case, and why? Because
it hoped to bring back an erring family in a second generation to the
fold of the faith. Yet what would you be doing? Without waiting for a
second generation you would he defeating its purpose."
A cold chill seemed to creep to my heart at these words. Was it the
lost opportunity the Bishop was thinking of, instead of the suffering
woman with her bruised and bleeding soul?