TEMPTATION.
Thy face across his fancy comes
And gives the battle to his hands.
TENNYSON.
The encounter with Pat served to turn Donovan's thoughts for a short
time from his trouble, it made him realise that there were other
beings in the world besides Tremains, men, women, and children more
or less poor, more or less suffering, more or less in need of help.
By-and-by, however, being but human, his own sorrow overpowered him
again, shutting out for the time all thought of others. He was no
novice in sorrow; one by one everything that was of most worth to him
had been either taken away or voluntarily renounced, but this last
call, this greatest sacrifice, seemed to have exhausted his strength
utterly. He went about his work more like a machine than like a man,
he lost all interest in what, but a short time before, had completely
absorbed him. Had he been ordered never to go to the hospital again,
he would have acquiesced without a word; had he been warned of the
most imminent danger, his heart would not have beat more quickly. To
rouse his energy, to awaken his love, hate, interest of any sort
seemed impossible.
Dr. Tremain's letter did indeed sharpen his pain; and in a few days'
time Mrs. Tremain wrote too--a long letter, cruelly kind, cruelly
trustful, urging in almost irresistible words that Donovan would
write to her and tell her all he could, that he would be open with
her, would remember what old friends they were, and would not allow
any formality, or even any mistake, to raise a barrier between them.
"Be sure to write to me when you can," the letter ended, "for till I
hear I shall not be happy about you, and you know your place in my
heart is very near Dick's. You see I put my request on selfish
grounds entirely! My husband seems to have seen so little of you the
other day, and I can't help fancying that you misunderstood each
other.
"Even if it was not so, please let me hear from you; remember that
you adopted Porthkerran as your home, and that even if things have
gone wrong we should like to have a little home confidence."
Perhaps Donovan had never before realised how much Mrs. Tremain was
to him; in actually leaving Trenant the year before, he had been too
much absorbed with the pain of leaving Gladys to have a thought for
anyone else, but now, as he read the motherly letter and recalled all
Mrs. Tremain's goodness to him, he did realise the truth very
bitterly. How wonderful her sympathy had been at the time of his
illness, how comforting it had been to tell her about Dot! "Remember
that this is your home," how cruelly tempting were the words! If he
could but have written in answer to that letter, if he could but have
given that "home confidence" for which she asked!
Well! it was no use going over the old arguments again. He had to be
silent,--merely to hold his tongue, merely to let all letters remain
unanswered, an easy enough _rôle_ surely--merely silence. Nothing to
be learnt before that part can be played, no need for beauty of voice
or grace of speech, for the silent player nothing is required but
self-restraint.
The end of it was that Mrs. Tremain's letter was quietly dropped into
the hottest part of the fire; when the sudden blaze died out, Donovan
turned away, and with something added to the dead weight of
depression which he had borne before, set out for his day's work.
For some weeks things went on in this way, the only change was that
those black depths of dejection lost their horrible novelty; it
seemed as if for long ages he had fagged through weary uninteresting
days, had borne this load at his heart. In time, however, he came to
realise the truth that dejection is selfishness, and no more
excusable on the ground of naturalness than selfishness is. It was
natural certainly to be dejected after a great loss, it was also
natural to put self first, but it was not for that reason right. He
had been simply wrapped up in himself for weeks, in himself and in
those bitter-sweet recollections of the past. When he was fully
awake to the fact his strength came back again, dejection was not an
easy foe to combat, but he went at it tooth and nail, and the strange
incentive to the work was none other than the old captain.
Poor Rouge was a curious person perhaps to save a fellow-being from
spiritual death, but nevertheless his presence did save Donovan. It
was the sight of that feeble old man dragging through his useless,
aimless days, with his pipe and his brandy and water, his weak fits
of laughter and his maudlin tears, which first roused him.
How he had neglected the poor old fellow! what a gloomy taciturn
companion he had been! what single thing had he done for Rouge beyond
offering him the use of his sitting-room? He must alter his conduct,
or the old man might as well not have come to him at all, and would
really have some excuse for slowly drinking himself to death. It was
on a Saturday that Donovan first became alive to these facts. It was
raining heavily, a walk was out of the question, the old captain was
asleep on the sofa, Waif slept on the hearthrug, the fire smouldered
in the grate, the only waking creature in the room besides himself
was Sweepstakes. By way of a first step out of his self-absorption,
Donovan walked across to the window, and tried to get up a quarrel
with the parrot; it was desperately hard work.
There is an old legend which tells how two monks, finding the tedious
routine of their life intolerably dull, resolved that they would try
to quarrel by way of enlivenment. They agreed that one should make
an assertion and the other should contradict it, this would make an
opening for impassioned argument.
"Black is white," asserted the younger monk.
"It is not," replied the elder.
"Black is white," repeated the first speaker.
"Oh, very well, brother," rejoined the other, meekly, "if you say so."
The habit of meek deference had grown so strong, that they found it
impossible to quarrel.
Neither Donovan nor Sweepstakes was meek, but nevertheless their
quarrel was but a tame one. It required such an exertion to get up
the requisite energy. However, after a time the bird did call forth
the good-natured teazing which he liked best, and was stimulated into
flapping his wings, screaming, chattering, swearing; finally he made
it up again, and accepted a Brazil nut as a peace-offering.
When he subsided into quiet, Donovan turned his attention to the
outside world, which for days he had seen without seeing. York Road
looked very dreary it must be owned. Exactly opposite his window was
the establishment of Swimming and Vapour Baths, then came grim,
uninteresting houses; far down to the left was the entrance to a
timber-yard, where he could see the tops of wooden planks swaying to
and fro in the wind. And all the time the rain came down steadily,
ceaselessly, with a dull, monotonous drip on the flags, the wheels on
the road passed by with a dull, hollow roll, the foot-passengers on
the pavement with dull, thudding footsteps, the wind in its gloomy
strait of houses with dull, faint meanings. A grey world, but one
which must be gone through with, and made the best of.
He felt that his absorption in his trouble had weakened him not a
little. All this time his brain had seemed half dead, he had read to
no purpose, had lived to no purpose. Worst of all the sense of his
complete and final separation from Gladys had come to him for the
first time in full force, proving only too clearly that, though he
had willed more than a year before not to see her again, he had all
the time nursed a faint hope of a possible re-union. He had really
renounced her before, but the most honestly-intentioned being in the
world cannot altogether shut out every ray of hope; he had hoped
without knowing that he hoped, he only knew that it had been so by
feeling aware that he had sunk now into a blacker depth. Clearly the
only thing for the present was to will not to think of her, the
hardest thing in the world. But the idea of putting every thought of
her away from him was more tolerable than the idea of letting her
memory chain him down in a selfishness which she would abhor.
Now for more days than he cared to remember Donovan had allowed
himself the pleasing pain of continually looking at the photograph
which the doctor had taken in the orchard, on that summer afternoon
which had ended so painfully. To study that family group, to note
Gladys' sweet face turned up to his, to see little Nesta on his own
shoulder, to recall that beautiful summer dream, was gratifying but
very weakening torture. Looking out on the grey world this
afternoon, the world which contrasted so strangely with the bright
picture of the past, he made up his mind that he must waste no
more--well, yes--sentiment, he was honest enough to use the true
word, over the photograph. Without any more delay he fetched it from
his room and burnt it. Also a certain sixpence which he had worn
with Dot's miniature since Gladys had put it into his hand one summer
day at the door of Trevethan's forge, was deliberately removed, and
found its way into his pocket with the ordinary unhallowed coins.
Then, having done his best to clear out his heart, he set to work to
fill up the vacuum with that strange substitute--the old captain.
Rouge at once perceived that, as he expressed it, the wind had
changed, when he awoke that Saturday afternoon; his companion for the
first time seemed approachable, he no longer felt uncomfortable in
his presence, he felt as if he could venture to talk freely. After
dinner they had a pipe together, and then Rouge launched out into one
of his long "yarns," about which there was generally a sort of dry
humour. To-night the old man, who was shrewd and curious, made his
story turn on his first love, and Donovan listened with an
imperturbable countenance, till the idea of old Rouge Frewin in love
with a beautiful Venetian lady of high rank tickled his fancy and
made him laugh. The name of the fair one, too, Ceccarella
Bonaventura, when reduced by Rouge's pronunciation to "Kickerella
Bunnyventury," was sufficiently ludicrous, and when it came to the
description of the gorgeous palace on the grand canal, with eight
masts at the door, when Rouge graphically sketched the beauties of
Venice from the Bridge of Sighs to "the beautiful cafés in the
Piazza," when he related how he had "got into hot water" over his
serenade, that is had had a pailful poured on his head from a window
by way of recompense, it was impossible to resist the keen sense of
the ridiculous which was almost his only Irish characteristic.
"And did you really love this signorina?" asked Donovan.
"Love her!" exclaimed Rouge. "I adored her, kissed the ground she
trod on--there's not much ground though in Venice--ruined myself in
gondolas that I might pass fifty times a day under her windows, wrote
verses about her, raved about her, dreamed of her--and then--"
He paused, a merry twinkle lurking in his little grey eyes.
"Well?" asked Donovan.
"The good ship sailed down the Adriatic, and knowing of course that
it must be so, I became resigned, and--forgot her again."
The utterly prosaic tone in which he said the last words had a very
comical effect. Donovan smiled.
"We all do," said Rouge, in the tone of one adding the moral to the
story. "It's the way with first loves, you know."
"Indeed!" ejaculated Donovan, mentally. But guessing that the
observant old captain had discovered the real cause of his
depression, and had produced his moral tale on purpose, he gave an
apparently careless turn to the conversation, for he would not for
the world have had him come a degree nearer his secret trouble, that
aching loss, of which it would have seemed sacrilege to speak to one
like Rouge.
Not many days after this, however, the dull, tedious monotony of life
was suddenly broken. Donovan had felt as if he could never again
really care for anything in the world, but now a sudden and violent
re-action set in.
"Do you ever go to Israel's now?" questioned Rouge one evening.
"Not since I went last with you," returned Donovan.
But therewith arose a fearful craving for his old pastime. He had,
during these years of self-denial, been occasionally seized with a
great desire for play, and when Stephen had shared his rooms he had
often had to bear the great irritation of seeing cards in the hands
of other people. But never before had the desire been so
irresistible, the temptation so terribly strong. He had resolved not
to play; had willed that he would utterly renounce gaming, but he
found himself now rebelling against the restraint, albeit it was a
self-restraint. He had a horror of pledges as pledges. The
consciousness of this self-made curb began to gall him unbearably.
He questioned its wisdom. It might have been necessary once, but now
might he not safely indulge in his favourite amusement--of course in
moderation? Having schooled himself all this time, might he not
relax a little, and satisfy this miserable craving? It was hard that
by his own doing he should cut himself off from the one amusement
that seemed left to him in the dull, grey world.
His strong nature would not quickly yield, however, to such
arguments. The struggle went on with fearful intensity for days.
Perhaps he would have stifled it sooner had he not been worn out with
the trouble of the last few weeks; however it might be, the
temptation proved the most severe of his whole life. It was as if
the lower self were making one final and desperate effort to gain the
mastery.
One day, in the thick of this inward struggle, he happened to be at
work in the dissecting-room, and though, as a rule, he took very
little note of the talk that went on there, it chanced that day that,
being anxious to escape from his own thoughts, he made himself
listen. There were plenty of Freethinkers among the students, and
many were at the dogmatic stage of atheism which Donovan had just
passed out of. Discussion on the points of discord between religion
and science was very frequent, but Donovan rarely joined in it,
partly because he was taciturn, partly because he was too much in the
borderland of doubt to care to make any assertion, partly because of
that strange and utterly unaccountable sense of reverence which was
pained by hearing the Unknown--the possibly non-Existent--spoken of
slightingly. The discussion to-day on the existence of the soul was
neither edifying nor interesting. Donovan, who was in the worst of
tempers, was chafed and irritated by the worthlessness of the
arguments on each side. "Pack of idiots!" he exclaimed to himself,
"if they must babble about what they don't understand, why can't they
put a little life into their talk?" He wandered back to his own all
too haunting thoughts, but was recalled by the peculiarly confident
tone of his neighbour, a young fellow of about two and twenty, who
was eagerly attempting to prove the truth of the theory admirably
summed up once by old Mrs. Doery, that "Death ends us all up."
"Well," remarked the student, as if he had got hold of a clinching
argument, "I've been at work here for some time, but I never yet
found a soul in the dissecting-room."
There was a general laugh, but it was checked by a quick retort,
uttered in a voice which was made powerful by a ring of indignation
and a slight touch of scorn.
"No one but a fool would look for one there."
"Bravo!" cried Donovan, delighted with the ready reply, though by no
means convinced of the existence of the soul.
He glanced with some interest and a good deal of curiosity at the
speaker. He was a certain Brian Osmond, a clever, hard-working,
silent fellow, with the reputation of being stiff and very "churchy,"
the latter accusation having probably for its sole foundation the
fact that his father was a clergyman. Looking at him to-day, Donovan
for the first time felt drawn towards him; he admired him and
respected him, as much perhaps for his subsequent silence as for his
sharp retort. Few know when they have said enough. Apparently Brian
Osmond did know, for he spoke no more, but went on with his work with
a slightly heightened colour, as if the speaking had been something
of an effort.
That night it so happened that Donovan and three other students were
told off for duty in the accident ward. There was a patient who
needed constant attendance; these four were to take it in turns to be
with him, two at a time. Not a little to his satisfaction, Donovan
found that Brian Osmond was to be his companion--he really wanted to
know him; they were now of course on speaking terms, but, being both
reserved men, they would never have got nearer had not an opportunity
such as this been thrown in their way.
Now all the evening Donovan's fierce craving for play had been
growing more and more irresistible; when the other two students
relieved guard, and he and Brian Osmond went to rest in an adjoining
room, the first thing he saw on the table was a pack of cards. He
did not say anything, but Brian at once caught sight of them.
"Hullo! these fellows have been playing," he remarked. "They've done
their game--let's have a turn at écarté to keep us awake."
Donovan did not speak an assent, but he took up the pack; if his
hands had been steel, and the cards so many magnets, the power which
drew him towards them could not have been more irresistible; the
struggle within him was ceasing, a delicious calm set in. The mere
sight of the cards was to him what the sight of bread is to a hungry
man--to feel them once more in his hands was bliss. Was the world,
after all, so grey? With scarcely a word he shuffled and dealt. His
hand was one to make the heart of a card-player leap within him, the
old passion had him well in its grip, the old fierce, delicious
excitement sent the blood coursing at double time through his veins;
after years of plodding work, after weeks of blank depression, this
was rapture.
"Stop a minute," said Brian; "we didn't settle points. I draw the
line at sixpence--is that too mild for you?"
Donovan produced a handful of coins from his pocket; among them was
the sixpence with the hole in it--Gladys' sixpence--he saw it at
once, and that instant her face rose before him in its purity and
guilelessness. Then the delicious calm gave place to deadly
struggle, his better self pleading eagerly--"This play calls out all
the bad in you, makes you the direct opposite of all that is pure and
noble, all that is like Gladys."
But the lower self was ready with bitter taunts--"What, a strong man
letting himself be bound by a mere ideal of a girl--a girl whom he
has renounced--who is nothing to him! Have your game, and don't be a
fool."
"You willed not to play, and it was the right you willed," urged one
voice.
"Nothing is so weak as to stick to a mistake," urged the other;
"there's no such thing as actual right or wrong--you can't prove it."
"There is right and wrong, there is purity of heart," urged the
higher counsellor--"think of Gladys."
He did think, and it saved him.
Brian thought him slightly crazed, for he threw down the cards, got
up from the table, and began to pace the room like a caged lion.
Before very long, however, he quieted down, threw himself back in a
chair, and in a matter-of-fact tone which belied his look of
exhaustion, said,
"I beg your pardon, Osmond, but I can't play; the fact is, it makes a
sort of demon of me."
Brian was surprised, for Donovan looked much too stern and
self-controlled for his idea of a gambler, but the struggle he had
just witnessed proved the truth of the words.
"I suppose there is a tremendous fascination in cards, if you're
anything of a player," he said. "I'm sorry I suggested a game."
"You couldn't know whom you had to deal with," returned Donovan,
gathering up the cards--he was strong enough to touch them now. "Who
would have thought that in this trumpery pack there was such
tremendous power? It's horribly humiliating when one comes to think
of it."
Feeling that he owed Brian a sort of apology for spoiling his game,
he overcame his reserve, and continued,
"You wouldn't wonder that I daren't play, if you knew how low these
magical things have dragged me. The last time I played, which is
getting on for three years ago, I won a small fortune, which my
adversary had in his turn won at Monte Carlo. On losing it he
absconded, hinting to his wife that he should commit suicide. The
horror of that was enough to make one renounce gambling, you would
think. Lately, though, the craving after it has come back; but I see
it won't do for me even in moderation. I suppose, having once
thoroughly abused a thing, you're never fit to use it again."
"That holds, I think, in some other cases," said Brian.
"You're thinking of the drunkard and total abstinence," said Donovan,
laughing. "Never mind, I don't object to being taken as a parallel
case, for it's perfectly true--the two vices are very nearly akin. I
daresay it's as hard to you to understand or sympathise with my
temptation as it is to me to sympathise with the poor old fellow who
shares my rooms, who is slowly drinking himself to death. No one can
understand or make allowance for utterly unknown temptations."
"I don't know that," said Brian, slowly. "One man at least I know
who can sympathise with anyone; but then he is that rare being--a
Christ-like man."
"Rare indeed," said Donovan, drily; "not too much of that sort of
thing in this nineteenth century. I see you think I speak bitterly;
perhaps you are right. I speak as an unbeliever, and I can count on
my fingers the Christians who have had so much as a kind word to give
me."
Brian began to feel very much drawn to his companion; in their next
interval of rest he took up the thread of the conversation again.
"That is almost too horrible to be believed," he said. "I know
people are intolerant, but that so few should have--" he paused for a
word, and Donovan broke in.
"Mind I don't say I laid myself out for their kindness. I didn't
cringe and fawn or disguise the views I then held; but to be
conscious that people would receive you if you were judiciously
hypocritical, does not raise your opinion either of them or of their
religion."
"No, indeed!" said Brian.
"Besides," resumed Donovan, "if they are in earnest, as people who
have made such a profession ought to be, surely they must see that
isolating atheists as if they were lepers is the worst thing both for
themselves and the atheists. I don't think it's in a man to feel
kindly to those who treat him unjustly, and the good folks of our
neighbourhood drove me as fast as they could into misanthropy. One
man put a spoke in the wheel, but he was an atheist--the prophet of
atheism."
"What, Raeburn?"
Donovan nodded an assent.
"I don't know that I agree with his views now any more than I agree
with Christianity, but I do believe that man gets hold of selfish
fellows and makes them downright ashamed of their selfishness."
"You have heard him lecture?"
"Only once, but I shall never forget it. The magnetism of the man is
extraordinary; he means what he says, and has had to suffer for
it--that, I expect, gives him his tremendous force. If you
Christians only knew the harm you do your cause by injustice, you'd
be more careful. St. Paul is not the only one who, for the sake of
what he believed the truth, has borne imprisonment, stonings,
watchings, fastings, perils of robbers, and perils of his own
countrymen. I don't wonder at St. Paul making converts, and I don't
wonder at Raeburn making converts, and as long as you persecute him,
as long as you are uncharitable to him, you may be sure atheism will
spread."
"If you admired him so much, why did you not go to hear him again?"
"Because, when I could have heard him again, I had sunk too low. I
had suffered a great injustice, and it had made me hate the whole
race--for a time. Once I half thought of going to see him, for I was
in great need of work; but, do you know, I was ashamed to.
Christians may scoff at the idea of being ashamed to go to see
Raeburn, but anyone who is living in the vindictive misanthropy which
I was living in may well be ashamed to go to one who leads a
self-denying, hard-working life for others, whatever his creed."
"But you do not go to hear him now, though you still admire him?"
"No, for I've found the great blank in atheism; it can never satisfy
a man's needs."
"Have you ever given the other side a hearing?" asked Brian.
"A reading, not a hearing; it is difficult to do that without either
being a hypocrite or disturbing a congregation."
Brian seemed about to speak, but he checked himself, and very soon
they were called to go into the ward. They did not have much more
conversation that night, but their friendship was begun; when Donovan
gave confidence and liking at all, he gave them without stint, and
Brian, in spite of his reputation for stiffness and punctilious
observance, became more and more fond of him. In some points they
were a little like each other, in some they were curiously different,
but both had found--Brian as a high churchman, Donovan as an
agnostic--that the secret of life is loving self-sacrifice.
They were exactly fitted to rub off each other's angles.