BACK TO LIFE
One mellow autumnal evening, when the sunlight reflected from the white
monastery walls upon the fruit trees climbing there was still warm and
full of ripening glow, the Provincial was taking his post-prandial
promenade.
It is, perhaps, needless to observe that he was alone. No one ever
walked with the Provincial. No footstep ever crushed the gravel in
harmony with his gliding tread. Perhaps, indeed, no one had ever walked
with him thus, in the twilight, since a fairy, dancing form had moved in
the shadow of his tall person, and footsteps lighter than his own had
vainly endeavoured to keep time with his longer limbs. But that was in
no monastery garden; and the useful, vegetable producing enclosure bore
little resemblance to the château terrace. In those days it may be that
there was a gleam of life in the man's deep, velvety eyes--perhaps,
indeed, a moustache adorned the short, twisted lip where the white
fingers rasped so frequently now.
The pious monks were busy with their evening meal, and the Provincial
was quite alone in the garden. All around him the leaves glowed ruddily
in the warm light. Everywhere the fruits of earth were ripe and full
with mature beauty; but the solitary walker noted none of these. He
paced backwards and forwards with downcast eyes, turning slowly and
indifferently as if it mattered little where he walked. The merry
blackbirds in the hay field adjoining the garden called to each other
continuously, and from a hidden rookery came the voice of the dusky
settlers, which is, perhaps, the saddest sound in all nature's
harmonies. But the Jesuit resolutely refused to listen. Once, however,
he stopped and stood motionless for some seconds, with his head turned
slightly to meet the distant cry; but he never raised his eyes, which
were deep and lifeless in their gaze. It may be that there was a rookery
near that southern château, where he once had walked in the solemn
evening hour, or perhaps he did not hear that sound at all though his
ear was turned towards it.
It would be hard indeed to read from the priest's still features the
thoughts that might be passing through his powerful brain; but the
strange influence of his being was such as makes itself felt without any
spoken word. As he walked there with his long hands clasped behind his
back, his peculiarly shaped head bent slightly forward, and his perfect
lips closely pressed, no one could have looked at him without feeling
instinctively that no ordinary mind was busy beneath the tiny
tonsure--that no ordinary soul breathed there for weal or woe, seeking
after higher things in the right way or the wrong. The man's cultivated
repose of manner, his evident intellectuality, and his subtle strength
of purpose visible in every glance of his eyes, betrayed that although
his life might be passed in the calm retreat of a monastery, his soul
was not there. The man was never created to pass his existence in
prayerful meditation; his mission was one of strife and contention
amidst the strong minds of the age. One felt that he was living in this
quiet Breton valley for a purpose; that from this peaceful spot he was
dexterously handling wires that caused puppets--aye, puppets with golden
crowns--to dance, and smirk, and bow in the farthest corners of the
earth.
Presently the Jesuit heard footsteps upon the gravel at the far side of
the garden, but he did not raise his head. His interest in the trivial
incidents of everyday life appeared to be quite dead.
“Softly, softly!” said a deep, rough voice, which the Provincial
recognised as that of the sub-prior; then he raised his eyes slightly
and looked across the garden, without, however, altering his pace.
He saw there Christian Vellacott walking by the side of the hard-faced
old monk with long, hesitating strides, like a man who had forgotten how
to use his legs. It was exactly six weeks since the young journalist had
passed through that garden with René Drucquer, and those weeks had been
to him a strange and not unpleasant dream. It seemed as if the man lying
upon that little bed was in no way connected with the wiry, energetic
Christian Vellacott of old. As he lay there semi-somnolent and lazily
comfortable from sheer weakness, his interest in life was of a
speculative description, as if he looked on things from afar off.
Nothing seemed to matter much. There was an all-pervading sense of
restful indifference as to whether it might be night or day, morning,
noon, or evening. All responsibility in existence seemed to have left
him: his ready pride of self-dependence had given way to a gentle
obedience, and the passage from wakefulness to sleep was very sweet.
Through all those dreamy hours he heard the soft rustle of woollen
garments and the suppressed shuffle of sandalled feet. Whenever he
opened his heavy eyes he discerned vaguely in the dim light a grey,
still form seated upon the plain wooden bench at his bedside. Whenever
he tried to change his position upon the hard bed and his weary bones
refused their function, strong, hard hands were slipped beneath him and
kind assistance freely given. As a rule, it was the tall sub-prior who
ministered to the sick man, fighting the dread fever with all his simple
knowledge; his hands smoothed oftenest the tossed pillow; but many
clean-shaven, strong, and weary faces were bowed over the bed during
those six weeks, for there was a competition for the post of sick-nurse.
The monks loved to feel that they were performing some tangible good,
and not spending their hours over make-believe tasks like a
man-of-warsman in fine weather.
One frequent visitor, however, Christian Vellacott never saw beneath his
lazy lashes. The Provincial never entered that little cell unless he was
positively informed that its inmate was asleep. The inscrutable Jesuit
seemed almost to be ashamed of the anxiety that he undoubtedly felt
respecting the sick man thus thrown upon his hands by a peculiar chain
of incidents. He spoke coldly and sarcastically to the sub-prior
whenever he condescended to mention the subject at all; but no day
passed in which he failed to pay at least one visit to the little cell
at the end of the long, silent corridor.
“Softly, softly!” said the old sub-prior, holding out his bony hand to
stay his companion's progress, “you are too ambitious, my son.”
Christian laughed in a low, weak voice, and raised his head to look
round him. The laugh ceased suddenly as he caught sight of the
Provincial, and across the potato-bed the two strong men looked
speculatively into each other's eyes in the peaceful twilight. The
Jesuit's gaze fell first, and with a dignified bow he moved gently away.
“I am stronger than I look, my father,” said Christian, turning to his
companion. Then they walked slowly on, and presently rested upon a
wooden bench built against the monastery wall.
The young Englishman leaned back and watched the Provincial, who was
pacing backwards and forwards where they had first seen him. The old
monk sat with clasped hands, and gravely contemplated the gravel beneath
his feet. Thus they waited together within the high, whitewashed walls,
while the light faded from the western sky. Three types, as strangely
contrasted as the student of human kind could wish to see: the old monk
with his placid bloodless face and strong useless arms--a wasted
energy, a mere monument to mistaken zeal; and the younger men so widely
severed by social circumstances, and yet resembling each other somewhat
in heart and soul. Each had a strong individuality--each a great and
far-reaching vitality. Each was, in his way, a power in the world, as
all strong minds are; for in face of what may be said (and with apparent
justice) respecting chance and mere good fortune, good men must come to
the top among their fellows. They must--and most assuredly they do. As
in olden days the doughtiest knights sought each other in the
battlefield to measure steel, so in these later times the ruling
intellects of the day meet and clear a circle round them. The Provincial
was a power in the Society of Jesus; perhaps he was destined one day to
be General of it; and Christian Vellacott had suddenly appeared upon the
field of politic strife, heralding his arrival with two most deadly
blows dealt in masterly succession. From the first they were sure to
come together, sooner or later; and now, when they were separated by
nothing more formidable than a bed of potatoes, they were glancing
askance and longing to be at each other. But it could not be. Had the
sub-prior left the garden it would have made no difference. It was
morally impossible that those two men could speak what they were
thinking, for one of them was a Jesuit.
The Provincial, however, made the first move, and the Englishman often
wondered in later days what his intention might have been. He walked on
to the northern end of the garden, where a few thick-stemmed pear trees
were trained against the wall. The fruit was hanging in profusion, for
it was not consumed in the monastery but given to the poor at
harvest-time. The Provincial selected a brown, ripe pear, and broke it
delicately from the tree without allowing his fingers to come in contact
with the fruit itself. Then he turned and walked with the same lazy
precision towards the two other occupants of the garden. At his approach
the sub-prior rose from his seat and stood motionless with clasped
hands; there was a faint suggestion of antagonism in his attitude, which
was quite devoid of servility. Christian, however, remained seated,
raising his keen grey eyes to the Provincial's face with a quiet
self-assertion which the Jesuit ignored.
“I am glad, Monsieur, to see you restored to health,” he said coldly to
Christian, meeting his gaze for a moment.
The Englishman bowed very slightly, and there was a peculiar
expressiveness in the action which betrayed his foreign education, but
the cool silence with which he waited for the Provincial to speak again
was essentially British. The Jesuit moved and glanced slowly beneath his
lowered eyelids towards the motionless figure of the sub-prior. He was
too highly bred to allow himself to be betrayed into any sign of
embarrassment, and too clever to let the Englishman see that he was
hesitating. After a momentary pause he turned gravely to the sub-prior,
and said:
“Will you allow your patient, my brother, to taste of our fruit? it is
ripe and wholesome.”
Then, without awaiting a reply, he presented the pear to Vellacott. It
was a strange action, and no doubt there was some deep intention in it.
The Jesuit must have known, however, from René Drucquer's report, and
from his own observations, that Christian Vellacott was of too firm a
mould to allow his feelings to be influenced by a petty action of this
description, however sincere and conciliatory might have been the spirit
in which it was conceived. Perhaps he read the Englishman's character
totally wrong, although his experience of men must have been very great;
or perhaps he really wished to conciliate him, and took this first step
with the graceful delicacy of his nation, with a view to following it
up.
With a conventional word of thanks, Vellacott took the pear and set it
down upon the bench at his side. Whatever the Jesuit's intention might
have been, it was frustrated by his quiet action. It would have been so
easy to have said a few words of praise regarding the fruit, and it was
only natural to have begun eating it at once; but Vellacott read a
deeper meaning in all this, and he chose a more difficult course. It was
assuredly harder to keep silence then than to talk, and a weaker-minded
man would have thanked the Provincial with effusion. The manner in which
Vellacott laid the fruit upon the bench, his quiet and deliberate
silence, conveyed unmistakably and intentionally that the Provincial's
society was as unwelcome as it was unnecessary. There was nothing to be
done but take the hint; and in the lowering twilight the solitary,
miserable man moved reluctantly away. With contemplative hardness of
heart the Englishman watched him go; there was no feeling of triumph in
his soul--neither, however, was there pity. The Jesuit had chosen his
own path, he had reached his goal, and that most terrible thirst--the
thirst for power--was nearly slaked. If at times--at the end of a long
day of hard mental work, when men's hearts are softened by weariness and
lowering peace--he desired something else than power, some little touch
of human sympathy perhaps, his was the blame if no heart responded to
his own. Christian Vellacott sat and wondered dreamily, with the
nonchalance of a man who has been at the very gates of death, if power
were worth this purchase-money.
The sub-prior had seated himself again, and with his strong hands meekly
clasped he waited. He knew that something was passing which he could not
understand: his dull instincts told him vaguely that between these two
strong men there was war-fare, dumb, sullen, and merciless; but unused
as he was to the ways of men, unlearned in the intricacies of human
thoughts, he could not read more.
“You have not told me yet, my father,” said Vellacott, “how long I have
been ill.”
“Six weeks, my son,” replied the taciturn monk.
“And it was very bad?”
“Yes, very bad.”
Christian slowly rubbed his thin hands together. His fingers were moist
and singularly white, with a bleached appearance about the knuckles. His
face was thin, but not emaciated, his long jaw and somewhat pronounced
chin were not more bony than of old, but the expression of his mouth was
quite changed; his lips were no longer thrust upward with a determined
curve, and a smile seemed nearer at hand.
“I have a faint recollection of being very tenderly nursed and cared
for; generally by you, I think. No doubt you saved my life.”
The sub-prior moved a little, and drew in his feet.
“The matter was not in my hands,” he said quietly.
The Englishman, with some tact, allowed this remark to pass in
acquiescent silence.
“Did you ever think that ... I was not ... going back to England?” he
asked presently, in a lighter tone, though the thought of returning
home brought no smile to his face.
The sub-prior did not reply at once. He appeared to be thinking deeply,
for he leaned forward in an unmonastic attitude with his knees apart,
his elbows resting upon them, and his hands clasped. He gazed across the
prosaic potato-bed with his colourless lips slightly apart.
“One night,” he began meditatively, “I went to sit with you after the
bell for matins had been rung. From midnight till three o'clock you
never moved. Then I gave you some cordial, and as I stooped over you the
candle flickered a little; there were strange shadows upon your face,
but around your lips there was a deeper shade. I had seen it once
before, on my brother's face when he lay upon the hard Paris pavement
with a bullet in his lungs, and his breath whistling through the orifice
as the wind whistles round our walls in winter. I held the candle closer
to your face, and as I did so, a hand came over my shoulder and took it
from my fingers. The Father Provincial had come to help me. He said no
word, but set the candle down upon the bed, and I held you up while he
administered the cordial drop by drop, as a man oils a cartwheel.”
“Ah!” said Christian slowly and suggestively, “_he_ was there!”
The monk made no reply. He sat motionless, with a calm, acquired
silence, which might have meant much or nothing.
“Did he come often?” inquired the Englishman.
“Very often.”
“I never saw him.”
This, again, was met with silence. Presently the sub-prior continued his
narrative.
“When daylight came at last,” he said, “the shadow had left your lips. I
think that night was the worst; it was then that you were nearer ...
nearer than at any other time.”
Christian Vellacott was strong enough now to take his usual interest in
outward things. With the writer's instinct he went through the world
looking round him, always studying men and things, watching, listening,
and storing up experience. The Provincial interested him greatly, but he
did not dare to show his curiosity; he hesitated to penetrate the
darkness that surrounded the man's life, past, present, and future. In a
minor degree the taciturn sub-prior arrested his attention. The old monk
was in a communicative humour, and the Englishman led him on a little
without thinking much about the fairness of it.
“Did your brother die?” he asked sympathetically.
“He died,” was the reply. “Yes, my son, he died--died cursing the
tyrant's bullet in his lungs. He threw away his life in a vain attempt
to alter human nature, to set straight that which is crooked and cannot
be set straight. He sought to bring about at once that which cometh not
until the lion shall eat straw like an ox. See, my son, that you do not
attempt the same.”
“I think,” said Christian, after a pause, “that we all try a little, and
perhaps some day a great accumulation of little efforts will take place.
You, my father, have tried as well!”
The monk slowly shook his head, without, however, any great display of
conviction.
“I was not always a monk,” he said, as if seeking to excuse a bygone
folly.
It was nearly dark now. The birds were silent, and only the whispering
of the crisp, withering leaves broke the solemn hush of eventide. The
two men sat side by side without speaking. They had learnt to know each
other fairly well during the last weeks--so well that between them
silence was entirely restful. At length Christian moved restlessly. He
had reached that stage of convalescence where a position becomes irksome
after a short time. It was merely a sign of returning strength.
“Where is the Abbé Drucquer,” he asked abruptly.
“He left us some time ago,” was the guarded reply.
“He spoke of going abroad,” said Christian, deliberately ignoring the
sub-prior's tone.
“The Father Provincial told me that the Abbé had gone abroad--to
India--to spread there the Holy Light to such as are still in darkness.”
The young journalist thought that he detected again a faint suggestion
of antagonism in the sub-prior's voice. The manner in which the
information was imparted was almost an insult to the Provincial. It was
a repetition of his words, given in such a manner that had the speaker
been a man of subtle tongue it would have implied grave doubt.
Christian was somewhat surprised that René Drucquer should have attained
his object so quickly. He never suspected that he himself might have had
much to do with it, that it had been deemed expedient to remove the
young priest beyond the possible reach of his influence, because he was
quite unconscious of this influence. He did not know that its power had
affected René Drucquer, and that some reflection of it had even touched
the self-contained Provincial--that it was even now making this old
sub-prior talk more openly than was prudent or wise. He happened to be
taking the question from a very different point of view.