Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into
Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where
he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near
prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of
them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already
described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly
apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were
insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be
surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to
fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at
the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex
animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and
next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition
being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source
of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no
one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was
completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he
dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day.
All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters
had observed in him.
He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his
hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading
Greek in live coals," she said.
"Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles.
"You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied.
"Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to
the green forest."
"A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom
you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the
tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind."
"Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms
with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and
Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated
for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was,
and Jennings too."
"Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I
fear you are doing."
"I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly
said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they
would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship
anywhere."
"Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time
they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at
least, ought to be obliged to them."
"I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to
the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the
University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their
heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it
was really because I wished to understand and get up the different
subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call
it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was
something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was
coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide
his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was
thinking about."
"Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever
this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone."
"And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back
thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It
is very hard."
Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so
little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be
a fair division."
"And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it
when it comes to her ears? and come it must."
"Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will
go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser."
"No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously.
"What do you mean?" asked Mary.
"These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no
summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know."
Mary looked at him with some surprise.
"I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take
my degree, any more than let me reside there."
"That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over
things, and making mountains of mole-hills."
"My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real
confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could
bear it."
Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said,
withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too
clearly that something is on your mind."
Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down.
"I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing
by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as
if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear
witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps,
something to bear witness against."
"Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the
Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!"
"Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was
dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at
least common report, knows more about me than I do myself."
"You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do
pain me now. What can you mean?"
Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no
good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have
begun the subject."
There was a silence.
"My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything,
and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way.
But really you frighten me."
"Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not
my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't."
"But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford
life? not we."
"No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders."
"Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and
she sat down with a look of great anxiety.
"Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but
many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have
not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a
stranger in, the Church of England."
There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a
conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you
are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles."
"No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I
say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this,
and no more--that I feel out of place."
"Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension,
you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it."
"I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go,
whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what
I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words
of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel.
No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious
subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me.
And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down."
"Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her
eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in
every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese
are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued:
"Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat
them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making
all things bright with her own magic smile.'"
Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years
before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into
realities."
"There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these
nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours?
what's the good of it?"
There was a pause again.
"I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of
intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality,
as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected
me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with;
for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness
against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear
the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against
individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw
Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very
liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying
persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place;
but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large
incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and
stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best
style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their
words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to
make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops
or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter
church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit
on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones."
Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you
had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at
St. Saviour's; you have kept good company."
"I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite
opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars."
"Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old
man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't
have his feet kept from the cold."
"Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw
yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms.
What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike
as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons
ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all
of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in
the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't
make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object
is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and
respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable
neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the
Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I
should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to
speak about them." He thought of White.
"Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I
can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for
ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has
always been put to the best of purposes."
"I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you
bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I
mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide.
I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and
charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons,
and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving
up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in
Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of
religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so
unpopular."
"Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the
world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly
people in it."
"But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow
as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually
laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church
ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other
communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint
with the age, who remained single in the Church of England."
Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so
monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help
laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was
a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you
are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry
you to some fair lady before you know where you are?"
"Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just
now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of
things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of
England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very
unlike that of the Apostles."
This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very
different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you
think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the
bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some
of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your
place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself.
That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your
own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it
will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it
down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman
Catholic."
"Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said
he sorrowfully.
She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests
with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's
no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against
you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You
have a strong _will_."
At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you
were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so
long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted
high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books."
Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room.