THE PEACE OF GOD
I awoke one morning with a strange feeling that something wonderful had
happened during the night: and as my mind gradually cleared, I realised
what that something was.
I had forgiven Frank Wildacre.
Or, rather, I had come to the knowledge that there was nothing to
forgive: that the man whose insensate folly had spoilt my life and
Fay's was not Frank at all, but myself.
But the result was the same. After nearly three years of the outer
darkness I had come once more into the light: I was at peace with Man
and therefore with God: and that seemed to be all that signified.
On myself I had no mercy. I could not forgive myself--I cannot forgive
myself now--I never shall forgive myself. But that was a matter of no
moment. Self-pardon is never the way of salvation. I knew--how I knew
I cannot tell, but I did know it--that God had forgiven me: I believed
from the depths of my heart that Fay, with the more perfect
comprehension of those who are already on the Other Side, had forgiven
me also: therefore my self-condemnation was no bar across the path of
life, but rather a healthy and permanent discipline of the soul.
With a joy beyond all earthly joy I rose and dressed and went out into
the hazy autumn morning. It was Sunday: and as I stood in the grey
mist which still lay over everything and which shrouded the garden and
the fields from my view, I heard the church-bell ringing for the eight
o'clock Celebration. And for the first time for more than two years
that bell called to me, and bade me come and take my place at the
Eucharistic Feast: for at last I was in love and charity with all men,
and intended to lead a new life.
I answered the Call and entered the Church which was hallowed by the
worship of centuries: and there I made my confession to Almighty God,
meekly kneeling upon my knees, as the pilgrims had knelt there ages and
ages before me. And as in lowly adoration I partook of the Blessed
Food Which Christ Himself had ordained, I thereby received Him into my
heart by faith: and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
once more filled my heart and mind with the knowledge and love of God
and of His Son, Jesus Christ.
And so I began life over again in that autumn morning in Restham
Church, at the beginning of the Great War.
I did not see Frank when I came home after the Service was over, as he
never came down to breakfast: but as I sat at my solitary meal I knew
no loneliness: the glory of the Great Reconciliation was about me still.
After breakfast Jeavons came to me in a somewhat deprecating manner.
"I am sorry to trouble you, Sir Reginald," he began, "and I told Maggie
Pearson so, but she wouldn't take no, and begged me to come and give
you her message."
Maggie Pearson was the daughter of one of my keepers--a respectable man
with a tidy wife and a large family.
"And what was her message?" I asked.
Jeavons still appeared confused. "I really did my best, Sir Reginald,
to make her understand that you'd given up all that sort of thing and
never went in for it now, finding it more or less uncertain, as you
might say, and out of the usual course of events, and so not altogether
to be depended upon; and that she'd much better stick to the doctor and
not trouble you, Mr. Wildacre being laid up in the house, and you with
enough on your hands as it is. But she went on crying, and said her
mother'd never forgive her if she didn't give you the message."
I felt that such unaccustomed loquacity was a sign of serious mental
disturbance on the part of Jeavons. He was generally so very brief and
to the point.
"Well, what _was_ the message?" I repeated, with (I cannot help
thinking) commendable patience.
"Well, Sir Reginald, begging your pardon, the fact is that Mrs.
Pearson's baby is dying of brownchitis or pewmonia or some other
disease connected with its teething, and nothing will satisfy her but
that you should come and lay your hands on it, like as was your custom
at one time, having outgrown it since. I told Maggie as how you had
given up the habit long ago, which she said her mother knew: but all
the same, Mrs. Pearson still persisted that she was sure you could cure
the baby if you tried, which was just like her obstinacy, and to my
thinking a great impertinence."
"Have they had the doctor, do you know?" I asked.
"Yes, Sir Reginald, and he can't do nothing more than what he has done,
he says, and he is afraid the child will die. Though what they wants
with that extra child at all, beats me, having six besides, and none
too much food for them all, with the dreadful war sending up the prices
of everything."
For two years now I had refused all the villagers' requests that I
would exercise my gift of healing upon them, as I knew, alas! that the
gift was no longer mine: and they had gradually ceased to proffer these
requests. Therefore it struck me as noteworthy that on the very day
when, as the old theologists put it, I had "found peace," I should be
asked to exercise this lost power once more. It seemed to be one of
those wonderful instances of direct Interposition which we of this
faithless and perverse generation disguise under the pseudonym of
"remarkable coincidences."
"Tell Maggie that I will come at once," I said.
And Jeavons accordingly departed, leaving behind him an atmosphere of
respectful disapproval and regret. Anything bordering on the
unusual--let alone the miraculous--filled my excellent butler with
horror and dismay.
When I am tempted--as indeed I often am, and frequently
successfully--to despise those Jeavons-like souls who delight to burrow
in the commonplace whenever the light of the supernatural shows above
the horizon, I remind myself of the first Order that was given after
the dread gates of death had been flung open and the ruler's little
daughter had come through them back to life. He Who had performed the
stupendous miracle did not take this unique opportunity of preaching a
sermon to the company assembled in the house of mourning, with His Own
Action as the text: on the contrary "He commanded that something should
be given her to eat."
How joyfully those who had laughed Him to scorn when He contradicted
their conventional assumption that death was the final ending--laughed,
doubtless with the uncomfortable, mocking laughter of all materially
minded people when confronted with things undreamed of in their smug
philosophy--must have hurried to lay the table and prepare the meal,
and perform all the trivial little duties which form the essence of the
normal and the commonplace. How relieved they must have felt to find
themselves once more in the ordinary routine of everyday existence!
And I like to think that it was then His turn to smile--He Who knew
them so well, and remembered that they were but dust; yet the dust
wherein He had clothed Himself in order to identify Himself with them.
But I am sure that in His smile there was no scorn. He knew what they
needed, and He supplied all their need.
Obedient to the Call which had come to me, I went through the village,
hardly conscious of any volition on my own part. I had merged my will
in another's, and had no longer any desire to act on my own initiative.
It is a strange feeling, this absolute surrender of self, and brings
with it that peace which the world can never give nor take away.
Still as in a dream I entered the cottage at the far end of the
village, and found Mrs. Pearson rocking in her arms her dying child;
the other children hanging round, all more or less in a state of tears.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Pearson," I said, when Maggie had ushered me into
the midst of the weeping group. "I have come because you sent for me."
"And right thankful I am to you, Sir Reginald," replied the poor woman:
"I says to myself, when the doctor give my baby up, 'If anybody can
save her, Sir Reginald can.'"
"I will do what I can," I said, "but it is years now since I have had
the power to heal anybody. I lost it when her ladyship went away."
"So I've heard, Sir Reginald. But I minded that story of the woman who
wouldn't take 'No' even from the Blessed Lord Himself, but begged for
just the crumbs under the table: and her child was healed in
consequence."
I knelt down beside the rocking-chair, and laid my hands upon the
little form lying on the mother's lap, at the same time lifting up my
whole soul in prayer. And straightway the answer came--as in my heart
of hearts I had known it would come. Like a mighty electrical force
the healing power rushed through me to the child. I could feel it in
every vein and every fibre of my body. And at the same time my
consciousness of the Presence of Christ was so acute that it was almost
as if I actually saw and heard and felt Him close beside me.
Whilst I prayed the moaning of the child ceased, and its laboured
breathing grew gradually soft and easy: and when I rose from my knees
and looked at it, I knew that it would live.
The poor mother clung to my hand, and wept tears of gratitude. But I
told her--as I always made a point of telling those whom I was
permitted to help--that her thanksgivings were not due to me, but to
Another Whose messenger for the time I was allowed to be: and then I
hurried back through the village to the Church, there to render thanks,
with the rest of the congregation at the office of Matins, for the
blessings that had (in my case so wonderfully) been vouchsafed to me.
When I returned home after the morning service, I found Frank dressed
and downstairs: but it was not until lunch was over and we had settled
down in our usual places--he on the Chesterfield on one side of the
hall fire, and I in my easy-chair on the other--that I found an
opportunity of telling him, without fear of interruption, of the
marvellous thing that had happened to me.
"Frank, my boy, I have something to say to you," I began.
"Yes, Reggie, what is it?"
"To me it is so wonderful that I find difficulty in putting it into
words. But though I may be slow to speak, you are always swift to
hear, so I dare say you will understand in spite of my blundering way
of telling it."
"Fire away," said Frank encouragingly. "I shall catch on right enough,
never fear."
"Well, first and foremost, I want you to know that I have forgiven you
completely for any share that you may have had in helping Fay to leave
me."
Frank gave a little cry of joy. "Oh, Reggie, how splendid of you!" he
began.
But I lifted up my hand to stop him. "Wait a bit, my boy. Please hear
all I have got to say before you cut in. I was going to tell you that
I forgave you freely because I had found that there was nothing to
forgive. It sounds rather Irish, I know: but I think you will
understand that we are obliged to forgive people when we think they
have injured us, even when we find they haven't really injured us at
all. I mean we are bound to get back into love and charity with them,
whether the lapse from love and charity was their fault or ours."
Frank nodded his head in the way that reminded me so of Fay. "I know
exactly what you are driving at. When we quarrel with anybody we've
got to bury the hatchet before we can be happy or good again: and the
original ownership of the hatchet has no effect whatever upon the
importance of the funeral."
"Precisely so. I'd got to forgive you whether you'd done anything
needing forgiveness or not: because I believed you had, and acted
according to that belief. Therefore it was imperative upon me to root
the bitterness towards you out of my heart: the fact that the
bitterness to a great extent was undeserved, did not altogether rob it
of its flavour. Well, then, that is the first thing: I want you to
know that at last I am at peace with you after nearly three years of
hot anger against you: whether you in any way deserved that anger, is
your affair not mine."
Here Frank's enforced silence broke down. "I didn't deserve it as much
as you thought, but I did deserve it a bit. I never tried to set Fay
against you: but when I saw she was set against you, I induced her to
cut and run, instead of using my influence to make her see things in a
different light, and to bring you and her together again. After all is
said and done, you were her husband: and when I saw the bond between
you was loosening I ought to have helped to tie it tight again instead
of undoing it altogether. Let's try to be just all round!"
"I am trying to be just," I replied: "and therefore I admit that though
I myself was the principal culprit, you were not altogether free from
blame."
"No, I wasn't. Neither was Fay, when you come to that, though I know
you won't let me say so."
"Certainly I won't: so don't try it on. Let us pass on to the next
thing. And that is that as I have forgiven you, so God has forgiven
me, and has restored to me my power of healing."
"Oh, Reggie, is that really true? I minded that more than anything!"
Frank's voice was hoarse with emotion and his language was confused:
but I understood him right enough.
"Yes: I was instrumental in healing Mrs. Pearson's baby this morning;
the first time that I have been permitted to do such a thing since Fay
went away." Then I changed the subject hastily, with that shyness
which all Englishmen feel when speaking about the matters that concern
their own souls. "And there is yet another thing I want to say; that
is to ask you to make your permanent home with me here. You can go
over and visit your relations in Australia as often as you like; but I
want you to feel that this is your real home. I have been very lonely
ever since Fay went away. I was going to add, 'and ever since Annabel
was married,' but candidly I don't think that really made much
difference. When the worst has happened, minor troubles don't count.
But you seem almost part of Fay--a sort of legacy that she has left me,
because she loved us both: and I feel that it would please her if we
devoted the rest of our lives to taking care of each other."
Frank was trying so hard to choke back his sob that he could not speak.
He was still very weak after his awful experiences in Belgium. So I
went on, order to give him time to recover himself.
"I think we shall be happy together, my boy, in a second-rate sort of
way; but we can never be really perfectly happy until we see Fay again.
At least I know I can't. But that is the worst of wrong-doing, or of
any infringement of the great law of Love." I still continued talking,
seeing that the boy was not yet master of himself: "We repent our
wrong-doing, and God forgives us, and we know it will all come right
again some day: but not here, or now. Between us you and I managed to
spoil Fay's life; and no repentance of ours will set that right in this
life, nor undo the harm that we (however unconsciously) wrought. There
is no bringing the shadow on the dial ten degrees backward. We may
pretend to ourselves that there is, but there isn't really. God still
performs many miracles, but not that one. Of course He _could_ if He
so willed it, but He certainly _doesn't_; and so what is done is done,
and what is past is past, and it is only left to us to bear with God's
help the consequences of our own misdeeds."
To my surprise the usually undemonstrative Frank sprang up from the
couch where he was lying, and flung himself on his knees beside my
chair, at the same time throwing his thin arms round my neck. "Yes,
Reggie, He can," he gasped between his sobs: "He can and He will and He
does."
I turned my head in surprise, and for the first time since Frank's
return to Restham, I saw his face within close range of my
short-sighted eyes. For a moment I was literally paralysed with
amazement, and my heart and pulses seemed to stand still and then to
rush on in a very delirium of unheard-of joy. For the face into which
I looked at such close quarters--the face quivering with emotion and
disfigured with tears, and yet to me the dearest and most beautiful
face in the whole world--was not Frank's at all--but Fay's!