THE NIGHT JOURNEY FROM NICE WHEN MRS. DALY SPEAKS WORDS OF FIRE
"Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast: its splendour, soon or late
Shall pierce the gloom. I shall emerge one day."
--_Browning._
A carriage was waiting outside a white and gilded hotel on the
Promenade des Anglais at Nice.
The sun was just dipping behind the Esterelle mountains and the
Mediterranean was the colour of wine. Already the Palais du Jetée was
being illuminated and outlined itself in palest gold against the
painted sky above the Cimiez heights, where the olive-coloured headland
hides Villefranche and the sea-girt pleasure city of Monte Carlo.
The tall palms in the gardens which front the gleaming palaces of the
Promenade were bronze gold in the fading light, and their fans clicked
and rustled in a cool breeze which was eddying down upon the Queen of
the Mediterranean from the Maritime Alps.
Mary Lothian came out of the hotel. Her face was pale and very sad. She
had been crying. With her was a tall, stately woman of middle-age;
grey-haired, with a massive calmness and peace of feature recalling the
Athena of the Louvre or one of those noble figures of the Erectheum
crowning the hill of the Acropolis at Athens.
She was Mrs. Julia Daly, who had been upon the Riviera for two months.
Dr. Morton Sims had written to her. She had called upon Mary and the
two had become fast friends.
Such time as Mary could spare from the sickbed of her sister, she spent
in the company of this great-souled woman from America, and now Mrs.
Daly, whose stay at Nice was over, was returning to London with her
friend.
The open carriage drove off, by the gardens and jewellers' shops in
front of the Casino and Opera House and down the Avenue de la Gare. The
glittering cafés were full of people taking an apéritif before dinner.
There was a sense of relaxation and repose over the pleasure city of
the South, poured down upon it in a golden haze from the last level
rays of the sun.
Outside one of the cafés, as the carriage turned to the station, some
Italians were singing "_O Soli Mio_" to the accompaniment of guitars
and a harp, with mellow, passionate voices.
The long green train rolled into the glass-roofed station, the
brass-work of the carriage doors covered thick with oily dust from the
Italian tunnels through which it had passed. The conductor of the
sleeping-car portion found the two women their reserved compartment.
Their luggage was already registered through to Charing Cross and they
had only dressing bags with them.
As the train started again Mrs. Daly pulled the sliding door into its
place, the curtains over it and the windows which looked out into the
corridor. Then she switched on the electric light in the roof and also
the lamp which stood on a little table at the other end.
"There, my dear," she said, "now we shall be quite comfortable."
She sat down by Mary, took her hand in hers and kissed her.
"I know what you are experiencing now," she said in her low rich voice,
"and it is very bitter. But the separation is only for a short, short
time. God wants her, and we shall all be in heaven together soon, Mrs.
Lothian. And you're leaving her with her husband. It is a great mercy
that he has come at last. They are best alone together. And see how
brave and cheery he is!--There's a real man, a Christian soldier and
gentleman if ever one lived. His wife's death won't kill him. It will
make him live more strenuously for others. He will pass the short time
between now and meeting her again in a high fever of righteous works
and duty. There is no death."
Mary held the firm white hand.
"You comfort me," she said. "I thank God that you came to me in my
affliction. Otherwise I should have been quite alone till Harold came."
"I'm real glad that dear good Morton Sims asked me to call. Edith Sims
and I are like" . . . She broke off abruptly. "Like sisters," she was
about to say, but would not.
Mary smiled. Her friend's delicacy was easy to understand. "I know,"
she answered, "like sisters! You needn't have hesitated. I am better
now. All you tell me is just what I am _sure_ of and it is everything.
But one's heart grows faint at the moment of parting and the reassuring
voice of a friend helps very much. I hope it doesn't mean that one's
faith is weak, to long for a sympathetic and confirming voice?"
"No, it does not. God has made us like that. I know the value of a
friend's word well. Nothing heartens one so. I have been in deep waters
in my time, Mary. You must let me call you Mary, my dear."
"Oh, do, do! Yes, it is wonderful how words help, human living words."
"Nothing is more extraordinary in life than the power of the spoken
word. How careful and watchful every one ought to be over words.
Spoken, they always seem to me to have more lasting influence than
words in a book. They pass through mind after mind. Just think, for
instance, how when we meet a man or woman with a sincere intellectual
belief which is quite opposed to our own, we are chilled into a
momentary doubt of our own opinions--however strongly we may hold them.
And when it is the other way about, what strength and comfort we get!"
"Thank you," Mary said simply, "you are very helpful. Dr. Morton
Sims"--she hesitated for a moment--"Dr. Morton Sims told me something
of your life. And of course I know all about your work, as the whole
world knows. I know, dear Mrs. Daly, how much you have suffered. And it
is because of that that you help me so, who am suffering too."
There was silence for a space. The train had stopped at Cannes and
started again. Now it was winding and climbing the mountain valleys
towards Toulon. But neither of the two women knew anything of it. They
were alone in the quiet travelling room that money made possible for
them. Heart was meeting heart in the small luxurious place in which
they sat, remote from the outside world as if upon some desert island.
"Dear Morton Sims," the American lady said at length. "The utter sane
goodness of that man! My dear, he is an angel of light, as near a
perfect character as any one alive in the world to-day. And yet he
doesn't believe in Jesus and thinks the Church and the Sacraments--I've
been a member of the Episcopalian Church from girlhood--only
make-believe and error."
"He is the finest natured man I have ever met," Mary answered. "I've
only known him for a short time, but he has been so good and friendly.
What a sad thing it is that he is an infidel. I don't use the word in
the popular reprehensible sense, but as just what it means--without
faith."
"It's a sad thing to us," Mrs. Daly said briskly, "but I have no fears
for him. God hasn't given him the gift of Faith. Now that's all we can
say about it. In the next world he will have to go through a probation
and learn his catechism, so to speak, before he steps right into his
proper place. But he won't be a catechumen long. His pure heart and
noble life will tell where hearts and wills are weighed. There is a
place by the Throne waiting for him."
"Oh, I am sure. He is wonderfully good. Indeed one seems to feel his
goodness more than one does that of our clergyman at home, though Mr.
Medley is a good man too!"
"Brains, my dear! Brains! Morton Sims, you see, is of the aristocracy.
Your clergyman probably is not."
"Aristocracy?"
"The only aristocracy, the aristocracy of brain-power. Don't forget I'm
an American woman, Mary! Goodness has the same value in Heaven however
it is manifested upon earth. The question of bimetallism doesn't
trouble God and His Angels. But a brilliant-minded Saint has certainly
more influence down here than a fool-saint."
Mary nodded.
Such a doctrine as this was quite in accord with what she wished to
think. She rejoiced to hear it spoken with such sharp lucidity. She
also worshipped at a shrine, that of no saint, certainly, but where a
flaming intellect illuminated the happenings of life. In his way, quite
a different way, of course, she knew that Gilbert had a finer mind
than even Morton Sims. And yet, Gilbert wasn't good, as he ought to
be. . . . How these speculations and judgments coiled and recoiled upon
themselves; puzzled weary minds and, when all was done, were very
little good after all!
At any rate, she loved Gilbert more than anything or anybody in the
world. So that was that!
But tears came into her eyes as she thought of her husband with deep
and yearning love. If he would only give up alcohol! _Why_ wouldn't he?
To her, such an act seemed so simple and easy. Only a refusal, that was
all! The young man who came to Jesus in the old days was asked to give
up so much. Even for Jesus and immortality he found himself unable to
do it. But Gilbert had only to give up one thing in order to be good
and happy, to make her happy.
It was true that Dr. Morton Sims had told her many scientific facts,
had explained and explained. He had definitely said that Gilbert was in
the clutches of a disease; that Gilbert couldn't really help himself,
that he must be cured as a man is cured of gout. And then, when she had
asked the doctor how this was to be done, he had so little comfort to
give. He had explained that all the advertised "cures"--even the ones
backed up by people of name, bishops, magistrates, and so on, were
really worthless. They administered other drugs in order to sober up
the patient from alcohol. That was easy and possible--though only with
the thorough co-operation of the patient. After a few weeks, when
health appeared to be restored, and the will power was certainly
strengthened, the "cure" did nothing more. The _pre-disposition_
was not eradicated. That was an affair to be accomplished only by two
or three years of abstinence and not always then.
--"I'll talk to Mrs. Daly about it," the sad wife said to herself. "She
is a noble, Christian woman. She understands more than even the doctor.
She _must_ do so. She loves our Lord. Moreover she has given her life
to the cause of temperance." . . .
But she must be careful and diplomatic. The natural reticence and
delicacy of a well-bred woman shrank from the unveiling, not only of
her own sorrow, but of a beloved's shame. The coarse, ill-balanced and
bourgeois temperament bawls its sorrow and calls for sympathy from the
sweepings of any Pentonville omnibus. It writes things upon a street
wall and enjoys voluptuous public hysterics. The refined and gracious
mind hesitates long before the least avowal.
"You said," she began, after a period of sympathetic silence, "that you
had been in deep waters."
Julia Daly nodded. "I guess it's pretty well known," she said with a
sigh. "That's the worst of a campaign like mine. It's partly because
every one knows all about what you've gone through that they give you a
hearing. In the States the papers are full of my unhappy story whenever
I lecture in a new place. But I'm used to it now and it doesn't hurt
me. Most of the stories are untrue, though. Mr. Daly was a pretty
considerable ruffian when he was in drink. But he wasn't the monster
he's been made out to be, and he couldn't help himself, poor, poisoned
man. But which story have you read, Mary?"
"None at all. Only Dr. Morton Sims, when he wrote, told me that you had
suffered, that your husband, that----"
"That Patrick was an alcoholic. Yes, that's the main fact. He did a
dreadful thing when he became insane through drink. There's no need to
speak of it. But I loved him dearly all the same. He might have been
such a noble man!"
"Ah, that's just what I feel about my dear boy. He's not as bad as--as
some people. But he does drink quite dreadfully. I hate telling you. It
seems a sort of treachery to him. But you may be able to help me."
"I knew," Mrs. Daly said with a sigh. "The doctor has told me in
confidence. I'd do anything to help you, dear girl. Your husband's
poems have been such a help and comfort to me in hours of sadness and
depression. Oh, what a dreadful scourge it is! this frightful thing
that seizes on noble and ignoble minds alike! It is the black horror of
the age, the curse of nations, the ruin of thousands upon thousands. If
only the world would realise it!"
"No one seems to realise the horror except those who have suffered
dreadfully from it."
"More people do than you think, Mary, but, still, they are an
insignificant part of the whole. People are such fools! I was reading
'Pickwick' the other day, a great English classic and a work of genius,
too, in its way, I suppose. The principal characters get drunk on every
other page. Things are better now, as far as books are concerned,
though the comic newspapers keep up their ghastly fun about drunken
folk. But the cause of Temperance isn't a popular one, here or in my
own country."
"A teetotaller is so often called a fanatic in England," Mary said.
"I know it well. But I say this, with entire conviction, absolute
bed-rock certainty, my dear, the people who have joined together to go
without alcohol themselves and to do all they can to fight it, are in
the right whatever people may say of them. And it doesn't matter what
people say either. As in all movements, there is a lot of error and
mistaken energy. The Bands of Hope, the Blue Ribbon Army, the
Rechabites are not always wise. Some of them make total abstinence into
a religion and think that alcohol is the only Fiend to fight against.
Most of them--as our own new scientific party think--are fighting on
wrong lines. That's to say they are not doing a tenth as much good as
they might do, because the scientific remedy has not become real to
them. That will come though, if we can bring it about. But I tire you?"
"Please go on."
"Well, you know our theory. It is a certain remedy. You can't stop
alcohol. But by making it a penal offence for drunkards to have
children, drunkenness must be almost eliminated in time."
"Yes," Mary said. "Of course, I have read all about it. But I know so
little of science. But what is the _individual_ cure? Is there
none, then? Oh, surely if it is a disease it can be cured? Dr. Morton
Sims tried to be encouraging, but I could see that he didn't think
there really _was_ much chance for a man who is a slave to drink.
It is splendid, of course, to think that some day it may all be
eliminated by science. But meanwhile, when women's hearts are bleeding
for men they love . . ."
Her voice broke and faltered. Her heart was too full for further
speech.
The good woman at her side kissed her tenderly. "Do not grieve," she
said. "Listen. I told you just now that so many of the great Temperance
organisations err in their rejection of scientific advice and
scientific means to a great end. They place their trust in God,
forgetting that science only exists by God's will and that every
discovery made by men is only God choosing to reveal Himself to those
who search for Him. But the Scientists are wrong, too, in their
rejection--in so many cases--of God. They do not see that Religion and
Science are not only non-antagonistic, but really complement each
other. It is beginning to be seen, though. In time it will be generally
recognised. I read the admission of a famous scientist the other day,
to this effect. He said, 'It is generally recognised that any form of
treatment in which the "occult," the "supernatural," or anything secret
or mysterious is allowed to play a dominant part in so neurotic an
affection as inebriety, often succeeds.' And he closed a most helpful
and able essay on the arrest of alcohol with something like these words:
"'The reference to agencies for the uplifting of the drink-victim
would be sadly incomplete without a very definite acknowledgment of
the incalculable assistance which the wise worker and unprejudiced
physician may obtain by bringing to bear upon the whole life of the
patient that Power, the majesty and mystery, the consolation and
inspiration of which it is the mission of religion to reveal.'"
"Then even the doctors are coming round?" Mary said. "And it means
exactly, you would say--?"
"I would tell you what has been proved without possibility of dispute a
thousand times. I would tell you that when all therapeutic agencies
have failed, the Holy Spirit has succeeded. The Power which is above
every other power can do this. No loving heart need despair. However
black the night _that_ influence can enlighten it. Ask those who
work among the desolate and oppressed; the outcast and forlorn, the
drink-victims and criminals. Ask, here in England, old General Booth or
Prebendary Carlile. Ask the clergy of the Church in the London Docks,
ask the Nonconformist ministers, ask the Priests of the Italian Mission
who work in the slums.
"They will tell you of daily miracles of conversion and transformations
as marvellous and mystical as ever Jesus wrought when He was visible on
earth. Mary! It goes on to-day, it _does_ go on. There is the only
cure, the only salvation. Jesus."
There was a passionate fervour in her voice, a divine light upon her
face. She also prophesied, and the Spirit of God was upon her as upon
the holy women of old.
And Mary caught that holy fire also. Her lips were parted, her eyes
shone. She re-echoed the sacred Name.
"I would give my life to save Gilbert," she said.
"I have no dear one to save, now," the other answered. "But I would
give a thousand lives if I had them to save America from Alcohol. I
love my land! There is much about my country that the ordinary English
man or woman has no glimmering of. Your papers are full of the
extravagances and divorces of wealthy vulgarians--champagne corks
floating on cess-pools. You read of trusts and political corruption.
These are the things that are given prominence by the English
newspapers. But of the deep true heart of America little is known here.
We are not really a race of money-grubbers and cheap humourists. We are
great, we shall be greater. The lamps of freedom burn clearly in the
hearts of millions of people of whom Europe never hears. God is with us
still! The Holy Spirit broods yet over the forests and the prairies,
the mountains and the rivers of my land. Read the 'Choir Invisible' by
James Lane Allen and learn of us who are America."
"I will, dear Mrs. Daly. How you have comforted me to-night! God sent
you to me. I feel quite happy now about my darling sister. I feel much
happier about my husband. Whatever this life has in store, there is
always the hereafter. It seems very close to-night, the veil wears
thin."
"We will rest, Mary, while these good thoughts and hopes remain within
us. But before we go to bed, listen to this."
Julia Daly felt in her dressing bag and withdrew a small volume bound
in vermilion morocco.
"It's your best English novel," she said, "far and away the
greatest--Charles Reade's 'The Cloister and the Hearth,' I mean. I'm
reading it for the fifth time. For five years now I have done so each
year."
"For ever?" she began in her beautiful voice, that voice which had
brought hope to so many weary hearts in the great Republic of the West.
"'For ever? Christians live "for ever," and love "for ever" but
they never part "for ever." They part, as part the earth and sun,
only to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here
for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the
Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of
time, one drop in the ocean of "For ever." Adieu--for the little
moment called "a life!" We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace;
we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is
purity and love divine; where no ill passions are, but Christ is,
and His Saints around Him clad in white. There, in the turning of
an hour-glass, in the breaking of a bubble, in the passing of a
cloud, she, and thou, and I shall meet again; and sit at the feet
of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them
with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of God upon His
throne, for ever--and ever--and ever.'"
The two women undressed and said their prayers, making humble
supplication at the Throne of Grace for themselves, those they loved
and for all those from whom God was hidden.
And as the train bore them through Nimes and Arles, Avignon and the old
Roman cities of southern France, they slept as simple children sleep.