WINGED
Beyond this one allusion to their respective positions, Christian was
silent regarding his captivity. After the gale subsided the weather took
a turn for the better, and clear skies by day and night rendered
navigation an easy matter.
With characteristic daring the young Englishman had decided to offer no
resistance and to seize no opportunities of escape until the termination
of the voyage. The scheme half-formed within his mind was to see the
voyage through, and effect his escape soon after landing in France. It
was not without a certain adventurous fascination, and in the meantime
there was much to interest him in his surroundings. If this young Abbé
was a typical member of the Society of Jesus, he was worth studying. If
this simplicity was an acquired cloak to deeper thought, it was worth
penetrating, and if the man's entire individuality had been submerged in
the mysterious system followed in the College of Jesuits, it was no
waste of time to seek for the real man beneath the cultivated suavity
that hid all feeling.
The more the two young men saw of each other the closer grew their
intimacy, and with growing intimacy the domination of the stronger
individuality was more marked in its influence.
To the frail and nervous priest this young Englishman was a new
experience; his vitality and calm, straightforward manner of speech were
such as the Abbé had never met with before. Such men and better men
there were and are in the Society of Jesus, otherwise the power of the
great Order would not be what it is; but René Drucquer had never come in
contact with them. According to the wonderful code of laws laid down by
its great founder (who, in other circumstances, might have prepared the
world for the coming of such a man as Napoleon the First), the education
of the young is entrusted to such brethren as are of slower parts; and
from these honest, but by no means intelligent, men the young Abbé had
learnt his views upon mankind in general. The creed they taught without
understanding it themselves was that no man must give way to natural
impulses; that he must restrain and quell and quench himself into a
machine, without individuality or impulse, without likes or dislikes;
that he must persistently perform such duties as are abhorrent to him,
eat such food as nauseates him, and submit to the dictates of such men
as hate him. And these, forsooth, are the teachings of one who, in his
zealous shortsightedness, claims to have received his inspiration direct
from the lips of the Great Teacher.
René Drucquer found himself in the intimate society of a man who said
what he thought, acted as he conceived best, and held himself
responsible, for word or deed, to none on earth. It was his first
mission after a long and rigorous training. This was the first enemy of
the Holy Church against whom he had been sent to fight, armed with the
immeasurable power of the greatest brotherhood the world has ever known,
protected by the shadow of its blessing; and there was creeping into the
young priest's heart a vague and terrible suspicion that there might be
two sides to the question. All the careful years of training, all the
invisible meshes of the vast net that had been gathering its folds round
him since he had first donned the dress of a Probationer of the College
of Jesuits, were powerless to restrain the flight of a pure and
guileless heart to the height of truth. Despite the countless one-sided
and ingenious arguments instilled into his eager young mind in guise of
mental armour against the dangers of the world, René Drucquer found
himself, at the very first contact with the world, unconvinced that he
was fighting upon the righteous side.
Brest had been left behind in a shimmering blue haze. Ahead lay the grim
Pointe de Raz, with its short, thick-set lighthouse facing the vast
Atlantic. Out to sea, in the fading glory of sunset, lay the long, low
Ile-de-Sein, while here and there black rocks peeped above the water.
The man holding the tiller was a sardine fisher, to whom every rock,
every ripple, of these troubled waters was familiar. Fearlessly he
guided the yawl close round by the high cliff--the westernmost point of
Europe--but with the sunset the wind had dropped and the sails hung
loosely, while the broad bows glided onwards with no sound of parted
water.
The long Atlantic roll was swinging lazily in, and the yawl rose to it
sleepily, with a long, slow movement. The distant roar of the surf upon
the Finisterre coast rose in the peaceful atmosphere like a lullaby. The
holy calm of sunset, the hush of lowering night, and the presence of the
only man who had ever drawn him with the strange, unaccountable bond
that we call sympathy, moved the heart of the young priest as it had
never been moved before by anything but religious fervour.
For the first time he spoke of himself. The solitary heart suddenly
broke through the restraining influence of a mistaken education, and
unfolded its sad story of a misread existence. Through no fault of his
own, by no relaxation of supervising care on the part of his teachers,
the Jesuit had run headlong into the very danger which his Superior had
endeavoured to avoid. He had formed a friendship. Fortunately the friend
was a _man_, otherwise René Drucquer were lost indeed.
“I should think,” he said musingly, “that no two lives have ever been so
widely separated as yours and mine, and yet our paths have met!”
Vellacott took the cigarette from his lips. It was made of a vile
tobacco, called “Petit Caporal,” but there was nothing better to be had,
and he was in the habit of making the best of everything. Therefore he
blew into the air a spiral column of thin blue smoke with a certain
sense of enjoyment before replying. He also was looking across the
glassy expanse of water, but his gaze was steady and thoughtful, while
his companion's eyes were dreamy and almost vacant. The light shone full
upon his face, and a physician--or a mother--would have noticed,
perhaps, that there was beneath his eyes a dull shadow, while his lips
were dry and somewhat drawn.
“Yes,” he said at length, with grave sympathy, “we have drifted together
like two logs in a torrent.”
The young priest changed his position, drawing in one leg and clasping
his hands round his knee. The movement caused his long black garment to
fall aside, displaying the dark purple stockings and rough shoes. The
hands clasped round his knee were long and white, with peculiarly flat
wrists.
“One log,” he said vaguely, “was bound for a certain goal, the other was
drifting.”
Vellacott turned slowly and glanced at his companion's face. The smoke
from the bad cigarette drifted past their heads to windward. He was not
sure whether the priest was speaking from a professional point of view,
with reference to heresy and the unknown goal to which all heretics are
drifting, or not. Had René Drucquer been a good Jesuit, he would have
seen his opportunity of saying a word in season. But this estimable
desire found no place in his heart just then.
“Your life,” he continued in a monotone, “is already mapped out--like
the voyage of a ship traced across a chart. Is it not so? I have
imagined it like that.”
Vellacott continued to smoke for some moments in silence. He sat with
his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the rail,
and his rough blue jersey wrinkled up so that he could keep one hand in
his pocket. The priest turned to look at him with a sudden fear that his
motives might be misread. Vellacott interpreted his movement thus, for
he spoke at once with a smile on his face.
“I think it is best,” he said, “not to think too much about it. From
what experience I have had, I have come to the humiliating conclusion
that men have very little to do with the formation of their own lives. A
ship-captain may sit down and mark his course across the chart with the
greatest accuracy, the most profound knowledge of wind and current, and
the keenest foresight; but that will have very little effect upon the
actual voyage.”
“But,” argued the priest in a low voice, “is it not better to have an
end in view--to have a certain aim, and a method, more or less formed,
of attaining it?”
“Most men have that,” answered Christian, “but do not know that they
have it!”
“_You_ have?”
Christian smoked meditatively. A month ago he would have said “Yes”
without a moment's hesitation.
“And you know it, I think,” added the priest slowly. He was perfectly
innocent of any desire to extract details of his companion's life from
unwilling lips, and Christian knew it. He was convinced that, whatever
part René Drucquer had attempted to play in the past, he was sincere at
that moment, and he divined that the young Jesuit was weakly giving way
to a sudden desire to speak to some fellow-being of his own life--to lay
aside the strict reserve demanded by the tenets of the Society to which
he was irrevocably bound. In his superficial way, Christian Vellacott
had studied men as well as letters, and he was not ignorant of the
influence exercised over the human mind by such trifling circumstances
as moonshine upon placid water, distant music, the solemn hush of
eventide, or the subtle odour of a beloved flower. If René Drucquer was
on the point of committing a great mistake, he at least would not urge
him on towards it, so he smoked in silence, looking practical and
unsympathetic.
The priest laughed a little short, deprecating laugh, in which there was
no shadow of mirth.
“I have not,” he said, rubbing his slim hands together, palm to palm,
slowly, “and--I know it.”
“It will come,” suggested the Englishman, after a pause.
The priest shook his head with a little smile, which was infinitely
sadder than tears. His cold silence was worse than an outburst of grief;
it was like the keen frost that comes before snow, harder to bear than
the snow itself. Presently he moved slightly towards his companion so
that their arms were touching, and in his soft modulated voice, trained
to conceal emotion, he told his story.
“My friend,” he said, intertwining his fingers, which were very
restless, “no man can be the worse for hearing the story of another
man's life. Before you judge of me, listen to what my life has been. I
have never known a friend or relation. I have never had a boy companion.
Since the age of thirteen, when I was placed under the care of the holy
fathers, I have never spoken to a woman. I have been taught that life
was given us to be spent in prayer; to study, to train ourselves, and to
follow in the footsteps of the blessed Saint Ignatius. But how are we
who have only lived half a life, to imitate him, whose youth and
middle-age were passed in one of the most vicious courts of Europe
before he thought of turning to holy things? How are we, who are buried
in an atmosphere of mystic religion, to cope with sin of which we know
nothing, and when we are profoundly ignorant of its evil results? These
things I know now, but I did not suspect them when I was in the college.
There all manliness, and all sense of manly honour, were suppressed and
insidiously forbidden. We were taught to be spies upon each other, to
cringe servilely to our superiors, and to deal treacherously with such
as were beneath us. Hypocrisy--innate, unfathomable hypocrisy--was
instilled into our minds so cunningly that we did not recognise it.
Every movement of the head or hands, every glance of the eyes, and every
word from the lips was to be the outcome--not of our own hearts--but of
a law laid down by the General himself. It simply comes to this: we are
not men at all, but machines carefully planned and fitted together, so
as to render sin almost an impossibility. When tempted to sin we are
held back, not by the fear of God, but by the thought that discovery is
almost certain, and that the wrath of our Superior is withheld by no
scruple of human kindness.... But remember, I knew nothing of this
before I took my vows. To me it was a glorious career. I became an
enthusiast. At last the time came when I was eligible; I offered myself
to the Society, and was accepted. Then followed a period of hard work; I
learned Spanish and Italian, giving myself body and soul to the work.
Even the spies set to watch me day and night, waking and sleeping,
feeding and fasting, could but confess that I was sincere. One day the
Provincial sent for me--my mission had come. I was at last to go forth
into the world to do the work of my Master. Trembling with eagerness, I
went to his room; the Provincial was a young man with a beautiful face,
but it was like the face of the dead. There was no colour, no life, no
soul, no heart in it. He spoke in a low, measured voice that had neither
pity nor love.
“When that door closed behind me an hour later the scales had fallen
from my eyes. I began to suspect that this great edifice, built not of
stones but of men's hearts, was nothing less than an unrighteous
mockery. With subtle, double-meaning words, the man whom I had been
taught to revere as the authorised representative of Our Lord, unfolded
to me my duties in the future. The work of God, he called it; and to do
this work he placed in my hands the tools of the devil. What I suspected
then, I know now.”
The young Englishman sat and listened with increasing interest. His
cigarette had gone out long before.
“And,” he said presently, in his quiet, reassuring voice, which seemed
to infer that no difficulty in life was quite insurmountable--“And, if
you did not know it then, how have you learnt it now?”
“From you, my friend,” replied the priest earnestly, “from you and from
these rough sailors. They, at least, are men. But you have taught me
this.”
Christian Vellacott made no answer. He knew that what his companion said
was true. Unconsciously, and with no desire to do so, he had opened this
young zealot's eyes to what a man's life may be. The tale was infinitely
sad, but with characteristic promptitude the journalist was already
seeking a remedy without stopping to think over the pathos of this
mistaken career.
Presently René Drucquer's quick, painful tones broke the silence again,
and he continued his story.
“He told me,” he said, “that in times gone by we had ruled the Roman
Catholic world invisibly from the recesses of kings' cabinets and
queens' boudoirs. That now the power has left us, but that the Order is
as firm as ever, nearly as rich, and quite as intelligent. It lies like
a huge mill, perfect but idle, waiting for the grist that will never
come to be crushed between its ruthless wheels. He told me that the sway
over kings and princes has lapsed with the growth of education, but that
we hold still within our hands a lever of greater power, though the
danger of wielding it is proportionately greater to those who would use
it. This power is the People. Before us lies a course infinitely more
perilous than the sinuous paths trodden by the first followers of St.
Ignatius as they advanced towards power. It lies on the troubled waters;
it leads over the restless, mobile heads of the people.”
Again the priest ceased speaking. There was a strange thrill of
foreboding in his voice, which, however, had never been raised above a
monotone. The two men sat side by side, as still as the dead. They gazed
vacantly into the golden gates of the west, and each in his own way
thought over these things. Assuredly the Angel of Silence hung over that
little vessel then, for no sound from earth or sea or sky came to wake
those two thinkers from their reverie.
At last the Englishman's full, steady tones broke the hush.
“This,” he said, “has not been learnt in two days. You must have known
it before. If you knew it, why are you what you are? You never have been
a real Jesuit, and you never will be.”
“I swore to the Mother of God--I am bound....”
“By an oath forced upon you!”
“No! By an oath I myself begged to take!”
This was the bitterest drop in the priest's cup. Everything had been
done of his own free will--at his own desire. During eleven years a
network of perfidy had been cunningly woven around him, mesh after mesh,
day after day. As he grew older, so grew in strength the warp of the
net. Thus, in the fulness of time, everything culminated to the one
great end in view. Nothing was demanded (for that is an essential rule),
everything must be offered freely, to be met by an apparently hesitating
acceptance. Constant dropping wears the hardest stone in time.
“But,” said Vellacott, “you can surely represent to your Provincial that
you are not fitted for the work put before you.”
“My friend,” interrupted the priest, “we can represent nothing. We are
supposed to have no natural inclinations. All work should be welcome,
none too difficult, no task irksome.”
“You can volunteer for certain services,” said Vellacott.
The priest shrugged his shoulders.
“What services?” he asked.
The Englishman looked at him for some seconds in the fading light. In
his quick way he had already found a remedy, and he was wondering
whether he should propose it or hold his peace. He was not afraid of
incurring responsibility. The young Jesuit had appealed to him, and
there was a way out of the difficulty. Christian felt that things could
not be made worse than they were. In a moment his mind was made up.
“As you know,” he said, “the Society has few friends and a multitude of
enemies. I am afraid I am an enemy; but there is one redeeming point in
the Jesuit record which we are all bound to recognise, and I recognise
it unhesitatingly. You have done more to convert the heathen than the
rest of the Christian Church put together. Whatever the motive has been,
whatever the results have proved to be, the missionary work is
unrivalled. Why do you not offer yourself for that?”
As he asked the question Christian glanced at his companion's face. He
saw the sad eyes light up suddenly with a glow that was not of this dull
earth at all; he saw the thin, pure face suddenly acquire a great and
wondrous peace. The young priest rose to his feet, and, crossing the
deck, he stood holding with one hand to the tarred rigging, his back
turned towards the Englishman, looking over the still waters.
Presently he returned, and laying his thin hand upon Christian's
shoulder, he said, “My friend, you have saved me. In the first shock of
my disillusion I never thought of this. I think--I think there is work
for me yet.”