_I am sick of time serving. I was borne in the land of Mother-Nakedness;
she who bare me was a true woman, and my father was sworn vassal to
King Candour, ere he died of a sunstroke; but villains robbed me of my
birthright, and I was sent to serve as a mercenary in the army of old
Hypocrisy, whom all men now hail Emperor and Pope. Now my armour is
rotten, my sword is broken, and I shall never fight more. Heigho! I
would I were sleeping under a green tree, in the land where the light
shines, and there is no lying!--The Comedy of Counterfeits._
After that night’s parting the lovers did not meet for several days.
Bradley went gloomily about his parochial duties, and when he was not so
engaged he was shut up in his study, engaged in correspondence or gloomy
contemplation. Alma did not seek him out again, for the very simple
reason that the nervous shock she had received had seriously affected
her generally robust health, and brought on a sort of feverish hysteria
complicated with sleeplessness, so that she kept her room for some
days, finding a homely nurse in Miss Combe. When Sunday came she was too
unwell to go to church.
In the afternoon she received the following letter:--
Dearest Alma.--For so I must still call you, since my spirit shrinks
from addressing you under any more formal name. I have heard that you
are ill, and I know the cause is not far to seek, since it must lie at
the door of him whose friendship has brought you so much misery. Pray
God it is only a passing shadow in your sunny life! An eternity of
punishment would not adequately meet my guilt if it should seriously
imperil your happiness or your health! Write to me, since I dare not,
must not, come to you--just one word to tell me you are better, and that
my fears on your account are without foundation. In the pulpit to-day,
when I missed your dear face, I felt terror-stricken and utterly
abandoned. Hell itself seemed opening under my feet, and every word I
uttered seemed miserable blasphemy. I knew then, if I did not know it
before, that my faith, my religion, my eternal happiness or misery,
still depend on _you_. A. B.
Two hours later Bradley received this reply
‘Do not distress yourself, dearest. I shall soon be quite well again. I
have been thinking it all over in solitude, and I feel quite sure
that if we are patient God will help us. Try to forget your great
persecution, and think rather of what is more solemn and urgent--your
position in the Church, and the justification of your faith before the
world.’
Ambrose Bradley read the above, and thought it strangely cold and calm;
he was himself too distracted to read between the lines and perceive the
bitter anguish of the writer. He still lacked the moral courage to make
a clean breast of the truth, and confess to Alma that his change had
come through that sad discovery in London. He dreaded her sorrow more
than her anger; for he knew, or feared, that the one unpardonable sin in
her eyes would be--to have loved another woman. She had no suspicion of
the truth. An entanglement of a disgraceful kind, involving the life
of a person of her own sex, was the last thing to occur to her mind
in connection with her lover. She attributed everything, his change of
manner, his strange passion, his unreasoning despair, to the exquisite
sensitiveness of a proudly intellectual nature. How deluded she was by
her own idolatry of his character the reader knows. What cared he for
the Church’s inquisition _now_? What cared he for dogmatic niceties,
or spiritual difficulties, or philosophic problems? He was sick of the
whole business, The great problem troubled him no longer, save that he
felt more and more in revolt against any kind of authority, more and
more tired of the sins and follies and blind fatalities of the world.
Even her tender appeals to his vanity seemed trivial and beside the
question. His ambition was dead.
Again and again he tried to summon up courage enough to make a complete
explanation; but his heart failed him, and so he temporised. He _could_
not say the word which, in all probability, would sunder them for ever.
He would wait; perhaps Heaven, in its mercy, might relieve him, and
justify him. In his own mind he felt himself a martyr; yet he could
escape the sense of contamination consequent on the possession of so
guilty a secret. The pure currents of his life seemed poisoned,--as
indeed they were.
The situation was a perilous one. Behind all Alma’s assumption of tender
acquiescence, she was deeply wounded by her lover’s want of confidence
in her devotion. His manner had shocked her inexpressibly, more even
than she yet knew, yet it only drew her more eagerly towards him. In her
despair and anger, she turned to the topic which, from the first moment
of their acquaintance, had been constantly upon his tongue, and she
tried to persuade herself that her strongest feeling towards him was
religious and intellectual. In reality, she was hungering towards
him with all the suppressed and suffocating passion of an unusually
passionate nature. Had he been a reckless man, unrestrained by moral
sanctions, she would have been at his mercy. So implicit was her faith
in the veracity of his perception, and so strong at the same time was
his personal attraction for her, that she might have been ready, for his
sake, had he told her the whole truth, to accept as right any course
of conduct, however questionable, which he might sanctify as right and
just.
From all this it will be gathered that Miss Alma Craik was in a position
of no inconsiderable peril. She had long been dwelling far too much
in the sphere of ideas, not to say crotchets, for a young lady without
protectors. Her one safeguard was her natural purity of disposition,
coupled with her strength of will. She was not the sort of woman to
be seduced into wrong-doing, as weak women are seduced, against her
conscience. Any mistake she might make in life was certain to be the
result of her own intellectual acquiescence,--or of wilful deception,
which indeed was imminent.
So the days passed on, in deepening gloom; for the situation was a
wretched one. Many other letters were interchanged, but the two seldom
met, and when they did it was only briefly and in the presence of other
people.
It was a life of torture, and could not last.
Meantime the Bishop of the diocese had not been idle. He had consulted
with the powers of the Church, and all had come to one conclusion--that
under any circumstances, a public scandal must be avoided. Pending any
action on the part of his superiors, Bradley gave no fresh occasion for
offence. His sermons became old-fashioned, not to say infantine. For the
rest, he was ready to resign at a moment’s notice; and he wrote to the
Bishop to that effect, inviting him to choose a successor.
‘After thinking the matter well over,’ he wrote, ‘I have concluded
that your lordship is right, and that my opinions are at present out of
harmony with the principles of the Establishment. A little while ago I
might have been inclined to stand my ground, or at any rate not to yield
without a protest; but my mind has changed, and I shall resign without
a murmur. Nor shall I seek another living in the English Church as at
present constituted. Even if I were likely to succeed in my search,
I should not try. Let me depart in peace, and rely on my uttering no
syllable which can be construed into resistance.’
The Bishop answered him eagerly, in the following words:
My dear Sir,--I think you have decided wisely, and I am grateful to you
for the temper in which you have accepted the situation. You have the
spirit of a true Christian, though your ideas are errant from the great
principles of Christianity. What I would suggest is this, and I hope
it will meet with your approval:--that under the plea of ill-health,
or some similar pretext, you offer your resignation, and withdraw
_temporarily_ from your ministry. I say temporarily, because I believe
that a brief period of reflection will bring you back to us with all
your original enthusiasm, with all the fresh faith and fervour of your
first days. When that time comes, the Church, I need not say, will
remember your self-sacrifice, and receive you back in due season like
the Prodigal Son. Until then, believe me, now as ever, your faithful
friend and well-wisher,
W. M., Darkdale and Dells.
*****
The result of this correspondence was speedily seen in a paragraph which
appeared in the ‘Guardian’:--
‘We understand that the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, M.A., vicar of Fensea, has
resigned his living on account of continued ill-health. The living is
in the gift of the Bishop of the diocese, who has not yet appointed a
successor.’
This paragraph was copied into the the local paper, and when they read
it, the Craiks (father and son) were exultant. Alma saw it also, but as
Bradley had privately intimated his decision to her, it caused her no
surprise. But an affair of so much importance was not destined to be
passed over so quietly. A few days later, a paragraph appeared in some
of the more secular journals to the effect that the Vicar of Fensea
had ‘seceded’ from the Christian Church, on account of his inability to
accept its dogmas, more particularly the Miracles and the Incarnation.
The announcement fell like a thunderbolt, and no one was more startled
by it than the clergyman himself.
He at once sat down and wrote the following letter to the ‘Guardian’:--
Sir,--I have seen with much pain a paragraph in several journals to the
effect that my reason for resigning the living of Fensea is because I
have ceased to believe in the essential truths of Christianity. Permit
me with indignation to protest against this unwarrantable imputation,
both upon myself and upon a religion for which I shall always have the
deepest reverence. My reasons for ceasing to hold office are known to
the Church authorities alone. It is enough to say that they are partly
connected with physical indisposition, and partly with private matters
with which the public has nothing to do. I believe now, as I have always
believed, that the Church of England possesses within herself the secret
which may yet win back an errant world into the fold of Christian faith.
In ceasing to hold office as a Christian clergyman, I do not cease in
my allegiance to Jesus Christ or to the Church He founded; and all
assertions to the contrary are quite without foundation.--I am, Sir,
&c.,
Ambrose Bradley.
*****
It will be seen that this epistle was couched in the most ambiguous
terms; it was perfectly true, yet thoroughly misleading, as indeed it
was meant to be. When he had written and posted it, Bradley felt that he
had reached the depth of moral humiliation. Still, he had not the heart
just then to say anything which might do injury, directly or indirectly,
to the Establishment in which he had been born and bred.