‘What God hath joined, no man shall put asunder,’
Even so I heard the preacher cry--and blunder!
Alas, the sweet old text applied could he
Only in Eden, or in Arcady.
This text, methinks, is apter, more in season--
‘What man joins, God shall sunder--when there’s reason!’
_Mayfair: a Satire_ .
Ambrose Bradley came back from London a miserable man. Alighting late
in the evening at the nearest railway station, nearly ten miles distant,
he left his bag to be sent on by the carrier, and walked home through
the darkness on foot. It was late when he knocked at the vicarage doer,
and was admitted by his housekeeper, a melancholy village woman, whose
husband combined the offices of gardener and sexton. The house was dark
and desolate, like his thoughts. He shut himself up in his study, and at
once occupied himself in writing his sermon for the next day, which was
Sunday. This task occupied him until the early summer dawn crept coldly
into the room.
The Sunday came, dull and rainy; and Bradley went forth to face his
congregation with a deepening sense of guilt and shame. A glance showed
him that Alma occupied her usual place, close under the pulpit, but he
was careful not to meet her eyes. Not far from her sat Sir George Craik
and his son, both looking the very reverse of pious minded.
It was a very old church, with low Gothic arches and narrow painted
windows, through which little sunlight ever came. In the centre of the
nave was the tomb of the old knight of Fensea, who had once owned the
surrounding lauds, but whose race had been extinct for nearly a century;
he was depicted, life-size, in crusader’s costume, with long two-handed
sword by his side, and hands crossed lying on his breast. On the
time-stained walls around were other tombstones, with quaint Latin
inscriptions, some almost illegible; but one of brand-new marble
recorded the virtues of Thomas Craik, deceased, the civil engineer.
Alma noticed in a moment that Bradley was ghastly pale, and that he
faced his congregation with scarcely a remnant of his old assurance, or
rather enthusiasm. His voice, however, was clear and resonant as ever,
and under perfect command.
He preached a dreary sermon, orthodox enough to please the most
exacting, and on an old familiar text referring to those sins which are
said, sooner or later, to ‘find us out.’ All those members of the flock
who had signed the letter to the Bishop were there in force, eager to
detect new heresy, or confirmation of the old backsliding. They were
disappointed, and exchanged puzzled looks with one another. Sir George
Craik, who had been warned by his son to expect something scandalous,
listened with a puzzled scowl.
The service over, Alma lingered in the graveyard, expecting the
clergyman to come and seek her, as he was accustomed to do. He did
not appear; but in his stead came her uncle and cousin, the former
affectionately effusive, the latter with an air of respectful injury.
They went home with her and spent the afternoon. When they had driven
away, she announced her intention, in spite of showery weather and
slushy roads, of going to evening service. Miss Combe expressed her
desire of accompanying her, but meeting with no encouragement, decided
to remain at home.
There were very few people at the church that evening, and the service
was very short. Again Alma noticed the vicar’s death-pale face and
always averted eyes, and she instinctively felt that something terrible
had wrought a change in him. When the service was done, she waited for
him, but he did not come.
Half an hour afterwards, when it was quite dark, she knocked at the
vicarage door. It was answered by the melancholy housekeeper.
‘Is Mr. Bradley at home? I wish to speak to him.’
The woman looked confused and uncomfortable.
‘He be in, miss, but I think he be gone to bed wi’ a headache. He said
he were not to be disturbed, unless it were a sick call.’
Utterly amazed and deeply troubled, Alma turned from the door.
‘Tell him that I asked for him,’ she said coldly.
‘I will, miss,’ was the reply; and the door was closed.
With a heavy heart, Alma walked away Had she yielded to her first
impulse, she would have returned and insisted on an interview; but she
was too ashamed. Knowing as she did the closeness of the relationship
between them, knowing that the man was her accepted lover, she was
utterly at a loss to account for his extraordinary conduct. Could
anything have turned his heart against her, or have aroused his
displeasure? He had always been so different; so eager to meet her gaze
and to seek her company. _Now_, it was clear, he was completely changed,
and had carefully avoided her; nay, she had no doubt whatever, from the
housekeeper’s manner, that he had instructed her to deny him.
She walked on, half pained, half indignant. The night was dark, the road
desolate.
All at once she heard footsteps behind her, as of one rapidly running.
Presently someone came up breathless, and she heard a voice calling her
name.
‘Is it _you_, Alma?’ called the voice, which she recognised at once as
that of Bradley.
‘Yes, it is I,’ she answered coldly.
The next moment he was by her side.
‘I came after you. I could not let you go home without speaking a word
to you.’
The voice was strangely agitated, and its agitation communicated itself
to the hearer. She turned to him trembling violently, with an impulsive
cry.
‘O Ambrose, what has happened?’
‘Do not ask me to-night,’ was the reply.
‘When I have thought it all over, I shall be able to explain, but not
_now_. My darling, you must forgive me if I seem unkind and rude, but I
have been in great, great trouble, and even now I can scarcely realise
it all.’
‘You have seen the Bishop?’ she asked, thinking to touch the quick of
his trouble, and lead him to confession.
‘I have seen him, and, as I expected, I shall have to resign or suffer
a long persecution. Do not ask me to tell you more yet! Only forgive me
for having seemed cold and unkind--I would cut off my right hand rather
than cause you pain.’
They were walking on side by side in the direction of the ‘Larches.’ Not
once did Bradley attempt to embrace the woman he loved, or even to take
her hand. For a time she retained her self-possession, but at last,
yielding to the sharp strain upon her heart, she stopped short, and with
a sob, threw her arms around his neck.
‘Ambrose, why are you so strange? Have we not sworn to be all in all to
one another? Have I not said that your people shall be my people,
your God my God? Do not speak as if there was any change. Whatever
persecution you suffer I have a right to share.’
He seemed to shrink from her in terror, and tried to disengage himself
from her embrace.
‘Don’t, my darling! I can’t bear it! I need all my strength, and you
make me weak as a child. All _that_ is over now. I have no right to love
you.’
‘No right?’
‘None. I thought it might have been, but now I know it is impossible.
And I am not worthy of you; I was never worthy.’
‘Ambrose! has your heart then changed?’ ‘It will never change. I shall
love you till I die. But now you must see that all is different, that
our love is without hope and without blessing. There, there; don’t
weep!’ ‘You will always be the same to me,’ she cried. ‘Whatever
happens, or has happened, nothing can part you and me, if your heart is
still the same.’
‘You do not understand!’ he returned, and as he spoke he gently put her
aside. ‘All must be as if we had never met. God help me, I am not so
lost, so selfish, as to involve you in my ruin, or to preserve your
love with a living lie. Have compassion on me! I will see you again, or
better still, I will write to you--and then, you will understand.’
Before she could say another word to him he was gone. She stood alone
on the dark road, not far from the lights of the lodge. She called after
him, but he gave no answer, made no sign. Terror-stricken, appalled, and
ashamed, she walked on homeward, and entering the house, passed up to
her room, locked the door, and had her dark hour alone.
*****
The next day Alma rose early after a sleepless night. She found awaiting
her on the breakfast table a letter which had been brought by hand. She
opened it and read as follows:
My Darling,--Yes, I shall call you so for the last time, though it means
almost blasphemy. You would gather from my wild words last night that
what has happened forever puts out of sight and hope my dream of making
you my wife. You shall not share my degradation. You shall not bear the
burthen of my unfortunate opinions as a clergyman, now that my social
and religious plans and aims have fallen like a house of cards. It is
not that I have ceased to regard you as the one human being that could
make martyrdom happy for me, or existence endurable. As long as life
lasts I shall know that its only consecration would have come from you,
the best and noblest woman I have ever met, or can hope to meet. But the
very ground has opened under my feet. Instead of being a free agent,
as I believed, I am a slave, to whom love is a forbidden thing. Even to
think of it (as I have done once or twice, God help me, in my horror
and despair) is an outrage upon _you_. I shall soon be far from here. I
could not bear to dwell in the same place with one so dear, and to know
that she was lost to me for ever. Grant me your forgiveness, and if
you can, forget that I ever came to darken your life. My darling! my
darling! I cry again for the last time from the depths of my broken
heart, that God may bless you! For the little time that remains to me I
shall have this one comfort--the memory of your goodness, and that you
once loved me!
Ambrose Bradley.
*****
Alma read this letter again and again in the solitude of her own
chamber, and the more she read it the more utterly inscrutable it
seemed.
That night Bradley sat alone in his study, a broken and despairing man.
Before him on his desk lay a letter just written, in which he formally
communicated to the Bishop his resignation of his living, and begged to
be superseded as soon as possible. His eyes were red with weeping, his
whole aspect was indescribably weary and forlorn. So lost was he in his
own miserable thoughts, that he failed to notice a ring at the outer
door, and a momentary whispering which followed the opening of the door.
In another instant the chamber door opened, and a woman, cloaked and
veiled, appeared upon the threshold.
‘Alma!’ he cried, recognising the figure in a moment, and rising to his
feet in overmastering agitation.
Without a word she closed the door, and then, lifting her veil to show
a face as white as marble, gazed at him with eyes of infinite sorrow
and compassion. Meeting the gaze, and trembling before it, he sank again
into his chair, and hid his face in his hands.
‘Yes, I have come!’ she said in a low voice; then, without another word,
she crossed the room and laid her hand softly upon his shoulder.
Feeling the tender touch, he shivered and sobbed aloud.
‘O, why did you come?’ he cried. ‘You--you--have read my letter?’
‘Yes, Ambrose,’ she answered in the same low, far-away, despairing
voice. ‘That is why I came--to comfort you if I could. Look up! speak to
me! I can bear everything if I can only be still certain of your love.’
He uncovered his face, and gazed at her in astonishment.
‘What! can you forgive me?’
‘I have nothing to forgive,’ she replied mournfully. ‘Can you think that
my esteem for you is so slight a thing, so light a straw, that even this
cruel wind of evil fortune can blow it away? I know that you have been
honourable in word and deed; I know that you are the noblest and the
best of men. It is no fault of yours, dear, if God is so hard upon us;
no, no, _you_ are not to blame.’
‘But you do not understand! I am a broken man. I must leave this place,
and-----’
‘Listen to me,’ she said, interrupting him with that air of gentle
mastery which had ever exercised so great a spell upon him, and which
gave to her passionate beauty a certain splendour of command. ‘Do
you think you are quite just to _me_ when you speak--as you _have_
spoken--of leaving Fensea, and bidding me an eternal farewell? Since
this trouble in the church, you have acted as if I had no part and
parcel in your life, save that which might come if we were merely
married people; you have thought of me as of a woman to whom you were
betrothed, not as of a loving friend whom you might trust till death.
Do you think that my faith in you is so slight a thing that it cannot
survive even the loss of you as a lover, if that must be? Do you not
know that I am all yours, to the deepest fibre of my being, that your
sorrow is my sorrow, your God my God--even as I said? I am your sister
still, even if I am not to be your wife, and whither you go, be sure I
shall follow.’
He listened to her in wonder; for in proportion as he was troubled, she
was strangely calm, and her voice had a holy fervour before which he
bent in reverent humiliation. When she ceased, with her soft hand still
upon his shoulder, he raised his eyes to her, and they were dim with
tears.
‘You are too good!’ he said. ‘I am the dust beneath your feet.’
‘You are my hero and my master. As Heloise was to Abelard, so would I be
to you. So why should you grieve? I shall be to you as before, a loving
friend, perhaps a comforter, till death separates us in this world, to
meet in a better and a fairer.’
He took her hands in his own, and kissed them, his tears still falling.
‘Thank God you are so true! But how shall I look you in the face after
what has happened? You must despise me so much--yes, yes, you _must!_’
She would have answered him with fresh words of sweet assurance, but he
continued passionately:
‘Think of the world, Alma! Think of your own future, your own happiness!
Your life would be blighted, your love wasted, if you continued to care
for me. Better to forget me! better to say farewell!’
‘Do _you_ say that, Ambrose?’ she replied; ‘_you_ who first taught
me that love once born is imperishable, and that those He has once
united--not through the body merely, but through a sacrament of
souls--can never be sundered? Nay, you have still your work to do in the
world, and I--shall I not help you still? You will not go away?’
‘I have written my resignation to the Bishop. I shall quit this place
and the Church’s ministry for ever.’
‘Do not decide in haste,’ she said. ‘Is _this_ the letter?’
And as she spoke she went to the desk and took the letter in her hand.
‘Yes.’
‘Let me _burn_ the letter.’
‘Alma!’
‘Give yourself another week to think it over, for my sake. All this has
been so strange and so sudden that you have not had time to think it
out. For my sake, reflect.’
She held the letter over the lamp and looked at him for his answer;
he hung down his head in silence, and, taking the attitude for
acquiescence, she suffered the paper to reach the flame, and in a few
seconds it was consumed.
‘Good night!’ she said. ‘I must go now.’
‘Good night! and God bless you, Alma!’ They parted without one kiss or
embrace, but, holding each other’s hands, they looked long and tenderly
into each other’s faces. Then Alma went as she came, slipping quietly
away into the night. But no sooner had she left the vicarage than all
her self-command forsook her, and she wept hysterically under cover of
the darkness.
‘Yes, his God is my God,’ she murmured to herself. ‘May He give me
strength to bear this sorrow, and keep us together till the end!’