A SEMI-QUARREL.
Mamma did not remain long in town. Bleak as the weather now was, she and
papa went to Brighton for a fortnight. They then went, for a few days,
to Malory; and from that, northward, to Golden Friars. I dare say papa
would have liked to find Lady Lorrimer there. I don't know that he did.
I, meanwhile, was left in the care of Miss Pounden, who made a very
staid and careful chaperon. I danced every day, and pounded a piano, and
sang a little, and spoke French incessantly to Miss Pounden. My spirits
were sustained by the consciousness that I was very soon to come out. I
was not entirely abandoned to Miss Pounden's agreeable society. Mr.
Carmel re-appeared. Three times a week he came in and read, and spoke
Italian with me for an hour, Miss Pounden sitting by--at least, she was
supposed to be sitting there on guard--but she really was as often out
of the room as in it. One day I said to him:
"You know Lady Lorrimer, my aunt?"
"Yes," he answered, carelessly.
"Did you know she was my aunt?"
"Your great-aunt, yes."
"I wonder, then, why you never mentioned her to me," said I.
"There is nothing to wonder at," he replied, with a smile. "Respecting
her, I have no curiosity, and nothing to tell."
"Oh! But you must know something about her--ever so little--and I
really know nothing. Why does she lead so melancholy a life?"
"She has sickened of gaiety, I have been told."
"There's something more than that," I insisted.
"She's not young, you know, and society is a laborious calling."
"There's some reason; none of you will tell me," I said. "I used to tell
every one everything, until I found that no one told me anything; now I
say, 'Ethel, seal your lips, and open your ears; don't you be the only
fool in this listening, sly, suspicious world.' But, if you'll tell
nothing else, at least you'll tell me this. What were you all about when
you opened the door of a house, in some street not far from this, to
Lady Lorrimer, and an odd-looking woman who was walking beside her, on
the day after she had written to mamma to say she had actually left
London. What was the meaning of that deception?"
"I don't know whether Lady Lorrimer out-stayed the time of her intended
departure or not," he answered; "she would write what she pleased, and
to whom she pleased, without telling me. And now I must tell you, if
Lady Lorrimer had confided a harmless secret to me, I should not betray
it by answering either 'yes' or 'no' to any questions. Therefore, should
you question me upon any such subject, you must not be offended if I am
silent."
I was vexed.
"One thing you must tell me," I persisted. "I have been puzzling myself
over her very odd looks that day; and also over the odd manner and
disagreeable countenance of the woman who was walking at her side. Is
Lady Lorrimer, at times, a little out of her mind?"
"Who suggested that question?" he asked, fixing his eyes suddenly on me.
"Who suggested it?" I repeated. "No one. People, I suppose, can ask
their own questions."
I was surprised and annoyed, and I suppose looked so. I continued: "That
woman looked like a keeper, I fancied, and Lady Lorrimer--I don't know
what it was--but there was something so unaccountable about her."
"I don't know a great deal of Lady Lorrimer, but I am grateful to her
for, at least, one great kindness, that of having introduced me to your
family," he said; "and I can certainly testify that there is no clearer
mind anywhere. No suspicion of that kind can approach her; she is said
to be one of the cleverest, shrewdest intellects, and the most
cultivated, you can imagine. But people say she is an _esprit fort_, and
believes in nothing. It does not prevent her doing a kind office for a
person such as I. She has more charity than many persons who make loud
professions of faith."
I had felt a little angry at this short dialogue. He was practising
reserve, and he looked at one time a little stern, and unlike himself.
"But I want to ask you a question--only one more," I said, for I wished
to clear up my doubts.
"Certainly," he said, more like himself.
"About my meeting Lady Lorrimer that day, and seeing you, as I told
you." I paused, and he simply sat listening. "My question," I continued,
"is this--I may as well tell you; the whole thing appeared to me so
unaccountable that I have been ever since doubting the reality of what I
saw; and I want you simply to tell me whether it did happen as I have
described?"
At this renewed attack, Mr. Carmel's countenance underwent no change,
even the slightest, that could lead me to an inference; he said, with a
smile:
"It might, perhaps, be the easiest thing in the world for me to answer
distinctly, 'no;' but I remember that Dean Swift, when asked a certain
question, said that Lord Somers had once told him never to give a
negative answer, although truth would warrant it, to a question of that
kind; because, if he made that his habit, when he could give a denial,
whenever he declined to do so, would amount to an admission. I think
that a wise rule, and all such questions I omit to answer."
"That is an evasion," I replied, in high indignation.
"Forgive me, it is no evasion--it is simply silence."
"You know it is cowardly, and indirect, and--characteristic," I
persisted, in growing wrath.
He was provokingly serene.
"Well, let me give you another reason for silence respecting Lady
Lorrimer. Your mamma has specially requested me to keep silence on the
subject; and in your case, Miss Ethel, her daughter, can I consider that
request otherwise than as a command?"
"Not comprehending casuistry, I don't quite see how your promise to
papa, to observe silence respecting the differences of the two Churches,
is less binding than your promise to mamma of silence respecting Lady
Lorrimer."
"Will you allow me to answer that sarcasm?" he asked, flushing a little.
"How I hate hypocrisy and prevarication!" I repeated, rising even above
my old level of scorn.
"I have been perfectly direct," he said, "upon that subject; for the
reason I have mentioned, I can't and won't speak."
"Then for the present, I think, we shall talk upon no other," I said,
getting up, going out of the room, and treating him at the door to a
haughty little bow.
So we parted for that day.
I understood Mr. Carmel, however; I knew that he had acted as he always
did when he refused to do what other people wished, from a reason that
was not to be overcome; and I don't recollect that I ever renewed my
attack. We were on our old terms in a day or two. Between the stanzas of
Tasso, often for ten minutes unobserved, he talked upon the old
themes--eternity, faith, the Church, the saints, the Blessed Virgin. He
supplied me with books; but this borrowing and lending was secret as the
stolen correspondence of lovers.
I have thought over that strange period of my life: the little books
that wrought such wonders, the spell of whose power is broken now; the
tone of mind induced by them, by my solitude, my agitations, the
haunting affections of the dead; and all these influences re-acting
again upon the cold and supernatural character of Mr. Carmel's talk. My
exterior life had been going on, the rural monotony of Malory, its
walks, its boating, its little drives; and now the dawning ambitions of
a more vulgar scene, the town life, the excitement of a new world were
opening. But among these realities, ever recurring, and dominating all,
there seemed to be ever present a stupendous vision!
So it seemed to me my life was divided between frivolous realities and a
gigantic trance. Into this I receded every now and then, alone and
unwatched. The immense perspective of a towering cathedral aisle seemed
to rise before me, shafts and ribbed stone, lost in smoke of incense
floating high in air; mitres and gorgeous robes, and golden furniture of
the altar, and chains of censers and jewelled shrines, glimmering far
off in the tapers' starlight, and the inspired painting of the
stupendous Sacrifice reared above the altar in dim reality. I fancied I
could hear human voices, plaintive and sublime as the aerial choirs
heard high over dying saints and martyrs by faithful ears; and the
mellow thunder of the organ rolling through unseen arches above.
Sometimes, less dimly, I could see the bowed heads of myriads of
worshippers, "a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues." It was, to my
visionary senses, the symbol of the Church. Always the self-same
stupendous building, the same sounds and sights, the same high-priest
and satellite bishops; but seen in varying lights--now in solemn beams,
striking down and crossing the shadow in mighty bars of yellow, crimson,
green, and purple through the stained windows, and now in the dull red
gleam of the tapers.
Was I more under the influence of religion in this state? I don't
believe I was. My imagination was exalted, my anxiety was a little
excited, and the subject generally made me more uncomfortable than it
did before. Some of the forces were in action which might have pushed
me, under other circumstances, into a decided course. One thing, which
logically had certainly no bearing upon the question, did affect me, I
now know, powerfully. There was a change in Mr. Carmel's manner which
wounded me, and piqued my pride. I used to think he took an interest in
Ethel Ware. He seemed now to feel none, except in the discharge of his
own missionary duties, and I fancied that, if it had not been for his
anxiety to acquit himself of a task imposed by others, and exacted by
his conscience, I should have seen no more of Mr. Carmel.
I was a great deal too proud to let him perceive my resentment--I was
just as usual--I trifled and laughed, read my Italian, and made
blunders, and asked questions; and, in those intervals of which I have
spoken, I listened to what he had to say, took the books he offered, and
thanked him with a smile, but with no great fervour. The temperature of
our town drawing-room was perceptibly cooler than that of Malory, and
the distance between our two chairs had appreciably increased.
Nevertheless, we were apparently, at least, very good friends.
But terms like these are sometimes difficult to maintain. I was vexed at
his seeming to acquiesce so easily in my change of manner, which,
imperceptible to any one else, I somehow knew could not be hidden from
him. I had brought down, and laid on the drawing-room table at which we
sat, the only book which I then had belonging to Mr. Carmel. It was
rather a dark day. Something in the weather made me a little more cross
than usual. Miss Pounden was, according to her wont, flitting to and
fro, and not minding in the least what we read or said. I laid down my
Tasso, and laughed. Mr. Carmel looked at me a little puzzled.
"That, I think, is the most absurd stanza we have read. I ought, I
suppose, to say the most sublime. But it is as impossible to read it
without laughing as to read the rest without yawning."
I said this with more scorn than I really felt, but it certainly was one
of those passages in which good Homer nods. A hero's head is cut off, I
forget his name--a kinsman, I daresay, of Saint Denis; and he is so
engrossed with the battle that he forgets his loss, and goes on fighting
for some time.
"I hope it is not very wrong, and very stupid, but I am so tired of the
_Gerusalemme Liberata_."
He looked at me for a moment or two. I think he did not comprehend the
spirit in which I said all this, but perhaps he suspected something of
it--he looked a little pained.
"But, I hope, you are not tired of Italian? There are other authors."
"Yes, so there are. I should like Ariosto, I daresay. I like
fairy-tales, and that is the reason, I think, I like reading the lives
of the saints, and the other books you have been so kind as to lend me."
I said this quite innocently, but there was a great deal of
long-husbanded cruelty in it. He dropped his fine eyes to the table, and
leaned for a short time on his hand.
"Well, even so, it is something gained to have read them," meditated Mr.
Carmel, and looking up at me, he added, "and we never know by what
childish instincts and simple paths we may be led to the sublimest
elevations."
There was so much gentleness in his tone and looks that my heart smote
me. My momentary compunction, however, did not prevent my going on, now
that I had got fairly afloat.
"I have brought down the book you were so kind as to lend me last week.
I am sure it is very eloquent, but there's so much I cannot understand."
"Can I explain anything?" he began, taking up the book at the same time.
"I did not mean that--no. I was going to return it, with my very best
thanks," I said. "I have been reading a great deal that is too high for
me--books meant for wiser people and deeper minds than mine."
"The mysteries of faith remain, for all varieties of mind, mysteries
still," he answered sadly. "No human vision can pierce the veil. I do
not flatter you, but I have met with no brighter intelligence than
yours. In death the scales will fall from our eyes. Until then, yea must
be yea, and nay, nay, and let us be patient."
"I don't know, Mr. Carmel, that I ought to read these books without
papa's consent. I have imperceptibly glided into this kind of reading.
'I will tell you about Swedenborg,' you said; 'we must not talk of Rome
or Luther--we can't agree, and they are forbidden subjects,' do you
remember? And then you told me what an enemy Swedenborg was of the
Catholic Church--you remember that? And then you read me what he said
about vastation, as he calls it; and you lent me the book to read; and
when you took it back, you explained to me that his account of vastation
differs in no respect from purgatory; and in the same way, when I read
the legends of the saints, you told me a great deal more of your
doctrine; and in the same way, also, you discussed those beautiful old
hymns, so that in a little while, although, as you said, Rome and Luther
were forbidden subjects, or rather names, I found myself immersed in a
controversy, which I did not understand, with a zealous and able priest.
You have been artful, Mr. Carmel!"
"Have I been artful in trying to save you?" he answered gently.
"You would not, I think, practise the same arts with other people--you
treat me like a fool," I said. "You would not treat that Welsh lady so,
whom you visit--I mean--I really forget her name, but you remember all
about her."
He rose unconsciously, and looked for a minute from the window.
"A good priest," he said, returning, "is no respecter of persons.
Blessed should I be if I could beguile a benighted traveller into
safety! Blessed and happy were my lot if I could die in the endeavour
thus to save one human soul bent on self-destruction!"
His answer vexed me. The theological level on which he placed all human
souls did not please me. After all our friendly evenings at Malory, I
did not quite understand his being, as he seemed to boast, no "respecter
of persons."
"I am sure that it is quite right," I said, carelessly, "and very
prudent, too, because, if you were to lose your life in converting me,
or a Hottentot chief, or anyone else, you would, you think, go straight
to heaven; so, after all, the wish is not altogether too heroic for this
selfish world."
He smiled; but there was doubt, I thought, in the eyes which he turned
for a moment upon me.
"Our motives are so mixed," he said, "and death, besides, is to some men
less than happier people think; my life has been austere and afflicted;
and what remains of it will, I know, be darker. I see sometimes where
all is drifting. I never was so happy, and I never shall be, as I have
been for a time at Malory. I shall see that place perhaps no more. Happy
the people whose annals are dull!" he smiled. "How few believe that
well-worn saying in their own case! Yet, Miss Ethel, when you left
Malory, you left quiet behind you, perhaps for ever!"
He was silent; I said nothing. The spirit of what he had said echoed,
though he knew it not, the forebodings of my own heart. The late evening
sun was touching with its slanting beams the houses opposite, and the
cold grimy brick in which the dingy taste of our domestic architecture
some forty years before delighted; and as I gazed listlessly from my
chair, through the window, on the dismal formality of the street, I saw
in the same sunlight nothing of those bricks and windows: I saw Malory
and the church-tower, the trees, the glimmering blue of the estuary, the
misty mountains, all fading in the dreamy quietude of the declining
light, and I sighed.
"Well, then," he said, closing the book, "we close Tasso here. If you
care to try Ariosto, I shall be only too happy. Shall we commence
to-morrow? And as for our other books, those I mean that you were good
enough to read----"
"I'm not afraid of them," I said: "we shan't break our old Malory custom
yet; and I ought to be very grateful to you, Mr. Carmel."
His countenance brightened, but the unconscious reproach of his wounded
look still haunted me. And after he was gone, with a confusion of
feelings which I could not have easily analysed, I laid my hands over my
eyes, and cried for some time bitterly.