A pebble, not a pearl!--worn smooth and round
With lying in the currents of the world
Where they run swiftliest--polished if you please,
As such things may and must be, yet indeed
No shining agate and no precious stone;
Nay, pebble, merely pebble, one of many
Thrown in the busy shallows of the stream
To break its flow and make it garrulous.
_The City Dame; or, a Match for Mammon._
I am not at all surprised at what you have told me,’ said Cholmondeley,
sipping his coffee and smoking his cigar. ‘I knew that it _must_
come sooner or later. Your position in the Church has always been an
anomalous one, and, egad! if you have been going on as you tell me, I
don’t wonder they want to get rid of you. Well, what do you intend to
do?’
‘That is just the point I came to consult you upon,’ returned the
clergyman.
‘I know what I should do in your place. I should stand to my colours,
and give them a last broadside. The ‘Chronicle’ is open to you, you
know. The old ship of the Church is no longer seaworthy, and if you
helped to sink it you would be doing a service to humanity.’
‘God forbid!’ cried Bradley, fervently. ‘I would rather cut off my right
hand than do anything to injure the Establishment. After all, it is the
only refuge in times of doubt and fear.’
‘It strikes me you are rather inconsistent,’ said Cholmondeley with cool
astonishment.
‘Not at all. It is precisely because I love the Church, because
I believe in its spiritual mission, that I would wish to see it
reorganised on a scientific and rational basis. When all is said and
done, I am a Christian--that is, a believer in the Divine Idea of
self-sacrifice and the enthusiasm of humanity. All that is beautiful
and holy, all that may redeem man and lead him to an everlasting
righteousness, is, in my opinion, summed up in the one word,
Christianity.’
‘But, my dear Bradley, you have rejected the _thing!_ Why not dispense
with the _name_ as well?’
‘I believe the name to be indispensable. I believe, moreover, that
the world would waste away of its own carnality and atheism without a
Christian priesthood. In the flesh or in the spirit Christ lives, to
redeem the world.’
‘Since you believe so much,’ said Cholmondrley drily, ‘it is a pity you
don’t believe a little more. For my own part, you know my opinion--which
is, that Christ gets a great deal more credit for what is good in
civilisation than He deserves. Science has done more in one hundred
years to redeem the race than Christianity has done in eighteen hundred.
_Verb, sap_.’
‘Science is one of his handmaids,’ returned Bradley, ‘and Art is
another; that is why I would admit both of these into the service of the
Temple. But bereft of his influence, separated from the Divine Idea, and
oblivious of the Divine Character, both Science and Art go stumbling
in the dark--and blaspheme. When Science gives the lie to any deathless
human instinct--when, for example, she negatives the dream of personal
immortality--she simply stultifies herself; for she knows nothing and
can tell us nothing on that subject, whereas Christ, answering the
impulse of the human heart, tells us _all_. When Art says that she
labours for her own sake, and that the mere reproduction of beautiful
earthly forms is soul-satisfying, she also is stultified; for there is
no true art apart from the religious spirit. In one word, Science and
Art, rightly read, are an integral part of the world’s religion, which
is Christianity.’
‘I confess I don’t follow you,’ said the journalist, laughing; ‘but
there, you were always a dreamer. Frankly, I think this bolstering up
of an old creed with the truths of the new is a little dishonest.
Christianity is based upon certain miraculous events, which have been
proved to be untrue; man’s foolish belief in their truth has led to
an unlimited amount of misery; and having disposed of your creed’s
miraculous pretensions----’
‘Are you quite sure you have disposed of them?’ interrupted Bradley. ‘In
any case, is not the personal and posthumous influence of Our Saviour,
as seen in the world’s history, quite as miraculous as any of the events
recorded of Him during His lifetime?’
‘On the contrary! But upon my life, Bradley, I don’t know where to
have you! You seem to have taken a brief on both sides. Beware of
indecision--it won’t do in religion. You are stumbling between two
stools.’
‘Then I say with Mercutio, “a plague on both your houses!”’ cried
Bradley, laughing.
‘But don’t you see I want to reconcile them?’
‘You won’t do it. It’s too old a feud--a vendetta, in fact. Remember
what Mercutio himself got by trying to be a peacemaker. The world
can understand your Tybalts and your Parises--that is to say, your
fire-eating Voltaires and your determined Tom Paines--but it distrusts
the men who, like Matt Arnold _et hoc genus omne_, believe simply
nothing, and yet try to whitewash the old idols.’
There was a silence. The two men looked at each other in friendly
antagonism, Cholmondeley puffing his cigar leisurely with the air of a
man who had solved the great problem, and Bradley smoking with a certain
suppressed excitement.
Presently the clergyman spoke again.
‘I don’t think we shall agree--so let us cease to argue. What I want you
to understand is, that I do love the Church, and cannot part from her
without deep pain--without, in fact, rupturing all my most cherished
associations. But there is another complication which makes this affair
unusually distressing to me. You know I am engaged to be married?’
‘Ah, yes! I heard something about it. I begin to see your difficulty.
You are afraid----’
He hesitated, as if not liking to complete the sentence.
‘Afraid of what, pray?’
‘Well, that, when you are pronounced heretical, she will throw you
over!’
The clergyman smiled curiously and shook his head.
‘If that were all,’ he replied, ‘I should be able very easily to
resign myself to the consequences of my heresy; but, fortunately or
unfortunately, the lady to whom I am engaged (our engagement, by the
way, is only private) is not likely to throw me over, however much I may
seem to deserve it.’
‘Then why distress yourself?’
‘Simply because I doubt my right to entail upon her the consequences of
my heterodoxy. She herself is liberal-minded, but she does not perceive
that any connection with a heretic must mean, for a sensitive woman,
misery and martyrdom. When I leave the Church I shall be practically
ruined--not exactly in pocket, for, as you know, I have some money of
my own--but intellectually and socially. The Church never pardons, and
seldom spares.’
‘But there are other careers open to you--literature, for example! We
all know your talents--you would soon win an eminence from which you
might laugh at your persecutors.’
‘Literature, my dear Cholmondeley, is simply empiricism--I see nothing
in it to attract an earnest man.’
‘You are complimentary!’ cried Cholmondeley, with a laugh.
‘Oh!--you are different! You carry into journalism an amount of secular
conviction which I could never emulate; and, moreover, you are one of
those who, like Harry the Smith, always fight “for your own hand.” Now,
I do not fight for my own hand; I repeat emphatically, all my care is
for the Church. She may persecute me, she may despise me, but still I
love her and believe in her, and shall pray till my last breath for the
time when she will become reorganised.’
‘I see how all this will end,’ said the journalist, half seriously.
‘Some of these days you will go over to Rome!’
‘Do you think so? Well, I might do worse even than _that_, for in Rome,
now as ever, I should find excellent company. But no, I don’t fancy that
I shall go even halfway thither, unless--which is scarcely possible--I
discover signs that the doting mother of Christianity accepts the new
scientific miracle and puts Darwin out of the _Index_. Frankly, my
difficulty is a social, or rather a personal, one. Ought I, a social
outcast, to accept the devotion of one who would follow me, not merely
out of the Church, but down into the very Hell of atheism, if I gave her
the requisite encouragement?’
Cholmondeley did not reply, but after reflecting quietly for some
moments he said:--
‘You have not told me the name of the lady.’
‘Miss Alma Craik.’
‘_Not_ the heiress?’
‘Yes, the heiress.’
‘I know her cousin, George Craik--we were at school together. I thought
they were engaged.’
‘They were once, but she broke it off long ago.’
‘And she has accepted _you_?’ ‘Unconditionally.’ He added with strange
fervour: ‘She is the noblest, the sweetest, and most beautiful woman in
the world.’
‘Then why on earth do you hesitate?’ asked Cholmondeley. ‘You are a
lucky fellow.’
‘I hesitate for the reason I have told you. She had placed her love, her
life, her fortune at my feet, devotedly and unreservedly. As a clergyman
of the Church, as one who might have devoted his lifetime to the
re-establishment of his religion and the regeneration of his order, one,
moreover, whom the world would have honoured and approved as a good and
faithful servant, I might have accepted the sacrifice; indeed, after
some hesitation, I did accept it. But now it is altogether different. I
cannot consent to her martyrdom, even though it would glorify mine.’
Although Bradley exercised the strongest control over his emotions,
and endeavoured to discuss the subject as dispassionately and calmly as
possible, it was clear to his listener that he was deeply and strangely
moved. Cholmondeley was touched, for he well knew the secret tenderness
of his friend’s nature. Under that coldly cut, almost stern face, with
its firm eyebrows and finely chiselled lips--within that powerful frame
which, so far at least as the torso was concerned, might have been
used as a model for Hercules--there throbbed a heart of almost feminine
sensitiveness and sweetness; of feminine passion too, if the truth must
be told, for Bradley possessed the sensuousness of most powerful men.
Bradley was turned thirty years of age, but he was as capable of a
_grande passion_ as a boy of twenty--as romantic, as high-flown, as full
of the fervour of youth and the brightness of dream. With him, to love
a woman was to love her with all his faith and all his life; he was far
too earnest to trifle for a moment with the most sacred of all human
sentiments. Cholmondeley was aware of this, and gauged the situation
accordingly.
‘If my advice is worth anything,’ he said, ‘you will dismiss from your
mind all ideas of martyrdom. You are really exaggerating the horrors of
the situation; and, for the rest, where a woman loves a man as I am sure
Miss Craik loves you, sacrifice of the kind you mention becomes easy,
even delightful. Marry her, my dear Bradley, and from the very altar of
pagan Hymen smile at the thunderbolts of the Church.’
Bradley seemed plunged in deep thought, and sat silent, leaning back
and covering his face with one hand. At last he looked up, and exclaimed
with unconcealed emotion--
‘No, I am not worthy of her! Even if my present record were clean, what
could I say of my past? Such a woman should have a stainless husband! I
have touched pitch, and been defiled.’
‘Come, come!’ said the journalist, not a little astonished. ‘Of all
the men I ever knew--and I have known many--you are about the most
irreproachable.’
The clergyman bent over the table, and said in a low voice, ‘Do you
remember Mary Goodwin?’
‘Of course,’ replied the other with a laugh. ‘What! is it possible that
you are reproaching yourself on _that_ account? Absurd! You acted by her
like a man of honour; but little Mary was too knowing for you, that was
all.’
‘You knew I married her?’
‘I suspected it, knowing your high-flown notions of duty. We all pitied
you--we all----’
‘Hush!’ said the clergyman, still in the same low, agitated voice. ‘Not
a word against her. She is asleep and at peace; and if there was any
sin I shared it--I who ought to have known better. Perhaps, had I been a
better man, I might have made her truly happy; but she didn’t love me--I
did not deserve her love--and so, as you know, we parted.’
‘I know she used you shamefully,’ returned Cholmondeley, with some
impatience. ‘Come, I _must_ speak! You picked her from the gutter, and
made her what Mrs. Grundy calls an honest woman. How did she reward you?
By bolting away with the first rascal who offered her the run of his
purse and a flash set of diamonds. By-the-by, I heard of her last in
India, where she was a member of a strolling company. Did she die out
there?’
‘Yes,’ answered the clergyman, very sadly.
‘Nine years ago.’
‘You were only a boy,’ continued Cholmondeley, with an air of infinite
age and experience, ‘and Mr. Verdant Green was nothing to you. You
thought all women angels, at an age when most youngsters know them to be
devils. Well, that’s all over, and you have nothing to reproach yourself
with. I wish _I_ could show as clean a book, old fellow.’
‘I do reproach myself, nevertheless,’ was the reply. ‘That boyish
episode has left its taint on my whole life; yes, it is like the mark of
a brand burned into the very flesh. I had no right to woo another woman;
yet I have done so, to my shame, and now Heaven is about to punish me
by stripping me bare in her sight and making me a social outlaw. I have
deserved it all.’
The two remained together for some time longer, but Bradley, though he
listened gently to his friends remonstrances, could not be persuaded to
take a less gloomy view of the situation. He was relieved unconsciously,
nevertheless, by the other’s cheery and worldly counsel. It was
something, at least, to have eased his heart, to have poured the secret
of his sorrow and fear into a sympathetic bosom.
They had dined very early, and when they rose to separate it was only
half-past eight o’clock.
‘Will you go on to my chambers?’ asked Cholmondeley. ‘I can give you a
bed, and I will join you after I have done my duties at the office.’
‘No; I shall sleep at Morley’s Hotel, and take the early morning express
down home.’
They strolled together along Pall Mall and across Leicester Square,
where they separated, Cholmondeley sauntering airily, with that sense
of superhuman insight which sits so lightly on the daily journalist,
towards the newspaper office in Cumberland Street, and the clergyman
turning into Morley’s, where he was well known, to arrange for his room.
As it was still so early, however, Bradley did not stay in the hotel,
but lighted his pipe and strolled thoughtfully along the busy Strand.
At a little after nine o’clock he found himself close to the Parthenon
Theatre, where ‘Hamlet’ was then being performed for over the hundredth
night. He had always been a lover of the theatre, and he now remembered
that Mr. Aram’s performance of the Danish prince was the talk of London.
Glad to discover any means of distracting his dreary thoughts, he paid
his two shillings, and found a place at the back of the pit.
The third act was just beginning as he entered, and it was not until
its conclusion that he began to look around the crowded house. The
assemblage was a fashionable one, and every box as well as every stall
was occupied. Many of the intelligent spectators held in their hands
books of the play, with which they might be supposed to be acquainting
themselves for the first time; and all wore upon their faces more or
less of that bored expression characteristic of audiences which take
their pleasures sadly, not to say stupidly. In all the broad earth there
is nothing which can quite equal the sedate unintelligence of an English
theatrical audience.
Suddenly, as he gazed, his eyes became attracted by a face in one of the
private boxes--he started, went pale, and looked again--as he did so,
the head was turned away towards the back of the box. Trembling like
one that had seen an apparition, he waited for it to incline again
his way--and when it did so he watched it in positive horror. As if
to convince himself of its identity, he borrowed an opera-glass from a
respectable-looking man seated near him, and fixed it on the face in the
box.
The face of a woman, splendidly attired, with diamonds sparkling on
her naked throat and arms, and other diamonds in her hair. The hair was
jet-black, and worn very low down on the forehead, almost reaching to
the thick black eyebrows, beneath which shone a pair of eyes as black
and bold as those of Circe herself. Her complexion had the olive
clearness of a perfect brunette, and her mouth, which was ripe and full,
was crimson red as some poisonous flower--not with blood, but paint. She
was certainly very handsome, though somewhat _petite_ and over-plump.
Her only visible companion was a plainly dressed elderly woman, with
whom she seldom exchanged a word, and a little boy of seven, elegantly
dressed.
Bradley looked again and again, and the more he looked the more his
wonder and horror grew. During all the rest of the performance he
scarcely withdrew his eyes, but just before the curtain fell he slipped
out of the pit, and passed round to the portico in front of the theatre.
There he waited, in the shadow of one of the pillars, till the throng
began to flow forth, and the linkmen began summoning the carriages and
cabs to take up their elegant burthens. The vestibule of the theatre was
full of gentlemen in full dress and ladies in opera-cloaks, laughing
and chatting over the evening’s performance. He drew close to the glass
doors and looked in, pale as death.
At last he saw the lady he sought, standing with the woman and the
child, and talking gaily with an elderly gentleman who sported
an eyeglass. How bold and beautiful she looked! He watched her in
fascination, always taking care to keep out of the range of her vision.
At last she shook hands with the gentleman, and moved towards the door.
He drew back into the shadow.
She stood on the threshold, looking out into the night, and the linkman
ran up to her, touching his cap.
‘Mrs. Montmorency’s carriage,’ she said in a clear silvery voice; and
the man ran off to seek the vehicle.
Presently a smart brougham came up, and, accompanied by her elderly
companion and the child, she stepped in. Almost simultaneously, Bradley
crossed the pavement and leapt into a hansom.
‘Keep that carriage in view,’ he said to the driver, pointing to the
brougham, ‘and I will give you a sovereign.’
The man laughed and nodded, and immediately the pursuit began.