IN 1844 there were living between Carlisle and Keswick, Robert Radcliffe
and his only child Kate. They belonged to an ancient Roman Catholic
family, remotely connected with the Earl of Derwentwater who was executed
in 1716; but Robert Radcliffe’s father had departed from the faith of his
ancestors, and his descendants, excepting one, had remained Protestant.
Robert had inherited a small estate and had not been brought up to any
profession. He had been at Cambridge, and at one time it was thought he
might become a clergyman, but he had no call that way, and returned to
Cumberland after his father’s death to occupy himself with his garden and
books. He was a good scholar and had a library of some three thousand
volumes. He married when he was about eight-and-twenty, but his wife
died two years after Kate was born, and he did not marry again. He took
no particular pleasure in field sports except angling, nor in the
gaieties of county society, although he was not a recluse and was on
friendly terms with most of his neighbours. He was fond of wandering in
his own country, and knew every mountain and every pass for twenty miles
round him. His daughter was generally his companion, sometimes on her
pony and sometimes on foot. Neither of them had been abroad, save once
to France when she was about sixteen. They cared little for travelling
in foreign parts, and he always said he got nothing out of a place in
which he was a lodger. He went once a Sunday to the village church: he
was patron of the living. The sermons were short and simple.
Theological questions did not much concern him, and he found in Horace,
Montaigne, Swift, and the County History whatever mental exercise he
needed. So far he was the son of his father, but his mother had her
share in him. She was a strange creature, often shaken by presentiments.
Years after she was married her husband had to go to Penrith on some
business which she knew would keep him there for a night. She got it
into her head when she was alone in the evening that something had
happened to him. She could not go to bed nor sit still, and at three
o’clock in the morning she called up her servant and bade him saddle his
horse and hers. Off they started for Penrith, and she appeared before
her astonished husband just as he was leaving his room at the inn for an
early breakfast. She rushed speechless into his arms and sobbed.
‘What is the matter?’ he cried.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing wrong at home?’
‘Nothing.’
She passed her hands slowly over his face as if to reassure herself,
pushed back his hair, looked in his eyes, took both his hands and said
softly, ‘Not another word, please.’
He understood her, at least in part. She remained quietly at the inn
till the afternoon and then went home with him. She was also peculiar in
her continual reference to first principles. The meaningless traditions,
which we mistake for things, to her were nothing. She constantly asked,
‘why not?’ and was therefore dangerous. ‘If you go on asking “why not?”’
said her aunt to her once, ‘mark me you’ll come to some harm.’ She saw
realities, and yet—it was singular—she saw ghosts. Mr. Radcliffe did not
obviously resemble his mother, nor did Kate, and yet across both of them
there often shot clear, and at times even flashing gleams, indisputable
evidence that in son and granddaughter she still lived. It was in his
relationship to his daughter that Mr. Radcliffe betrayed his mother’s
blood. His reading, as we have said, was in Horace, Montaigne, and
Swift, but if Kate went away for no longer than a couple of days to her
cousins at Penrith, he used to watch her departure till she was hidden at
the first bend of the road about half a mile distant, and then when he
went back to his room and looked at her empty chair, a half-mad,
unconquerable melancholy overcame him. It was not to be explained by
anxiety. It was inexplicable, a revelation of something in him dark and
terrible. In 1844 Kate Radcliffe was twenty-four years old. She had
never been handsome, and when she was sixteen her pony had missed its
footing on a treacherous mountain track and she narrowly escaped with her
life. She was thrown on a rock, and her forehead was crossed henceforth
beyond remedy with a long broad mark. She had never cared much for
company, and her disfigurement made her care for it less. She could not
help feeling that everybody noticed it, and most people in truth noticed
nothing else. She was ‘the girl with a scar.’ As time went on, this
self-consciousness, or rather consciousness of herself as the scar,
diminished, but her indifference remained, other reasons for it being
added. She never had a lover; and, indeed, what man could be expected to
take to himself as wife even the wisest and most affectionate of women
whose brow was indented? She was advised to wear some kind of head-gear
which would hide her misfortune, but she refused. ‘Everybody,’ she said,
‘would know what was behind, and I will not be harassed by concealment.’
To her father her accident did but the more endear her. There is no love
so wild, no, not even the love of a mistress, as that which is sometimes
found in a father or mother for a child, and often for one who is
physically or even mentally defective. It is not subject to satiety and
lassitude, and grows with age. To Kate also her father was more than the
whole world of men and women. The best of friends weary of one another
and large spaces of separation are necessary, but these two were always
happy together. Theirs was the blessed intimacy which is never unmeaning
and yet can endure silence. They never felt that unpleasant stricture of
the chest caused by a search for entertainment or for some subject of
conversation.
Nevertheless, although Mr. Radcliffe was so much to Kate, she was
herself, and consequently had wants which were not his. There had been
born in her before 1844 a passion which could not be satisfied by any
human being, a leaning forward and outward to something she knew not
what. The sun rose over the fells; they were purple in sunset; the
constellations slowly climbed the eastern sky on a clear night, and her
heart lay bare: she wondered, she was bowed down with awe, and she also
longed unspeakably. When she was about twenty-five years old she
accepted an invitation to spend a few weeks with a friend in London. She
was fond of music, and on her first Sunday she could not resist the
temptation to hear a mass by Mozart in Saint Mary’s, Moorfields. She was
overpowered, and something moved in her soul which she had never felt in
the church at home. She worshipped at Saint Mary’s several times
afterwards, and her friend rallied her on conversion to Roman
Catholicism.
‘It is the music, Kate.’
‘Well, then, why not?’
‘The music is so tender, so overwhelming, that thinking is impossible.’
‘Is thinking the only way to the truth—putting two and two together? The
noblest truth comes with music. More solid truth has been demonstrated
by a song, a march, or a hymn, than by famous political and theological
treatises. But I am not a Roman Catholic.’
‘Oh yes! I know what you mean: it is a poetical way of saying that music
stimulates aspiration.’
‘No, that is not what I mean. If there be such a mental operation as
passionless thinking it does not lead to much. Emotion makes
intellectual discoveries.’
‘I do not understand you. Revealed religion rests on intelligent
conviction. It is the doctrine of a Creator, of law, of sin, of
redemption, of future happiness and misery.’
‘That is to say, your religion stands on authority or logic. But I
cannot dispute with you. The beliefs by which some of us live—“belief”
is not the right word—are not begotten or strengthened and cannot be
overthrown by argument. We dare not expose them, but if they were to
fail, we should welcome death and annihilation. I repeat, I am not a
Roman Catholic.’
Kate went back to her father and her native hills. The drama of Saint
Mary Moorfields was continually before her eyes, and Mozart’s music was
continually in her ears. An ideal human being had been revealed to her
who understood her, pitied her, and loved her. She was no longer a mere
atom of dust, unnoticed amongst millions of millions. But the intensity
of her faith gave birth to fear and doubt. Her own words recurred to
her, but she was forced to admit that she must depend upon evidence. If
Christ were nothing but a legend, she might as well kneel to a mist.
In those days, within five miles of her father’s house was a small Roman
Catholic chapel. The priest had been well educated, but he had never
questioned any of the dogmas imposed on him as a child. One Sunday
morning, when her father did not go to church, Kate walked over to the
chapel and heard mass. The contrast with Saint Mary Moorfields was
great. The sermon disappointed her. It was little more than simple
insistence on ritual duty. She reflected, however, that it was not
addressed to her, but to those who had been brought up to believe. As
she walked home a strange conflict arose in her. On the one hand were
her imperious needs, which almost compelled assumption of fact; but the
wind blew, and when she looked up the clouds sailed over the mountains.
She sat on a grey rock to rest. It had lain there for thousands of
years, and she was reminded of the Druid circle above the Greta. She
could get no further with her thinking, and knelt down and prayed for
light. It is of all prayers the most sincere, but she was not
answered—at least not then. The next Sunday she went again to mass, and
she had half a mind to signify her wish to confess, but what could she
confess? She was burdened with no sins, and in confession she could not
fully explain her case. She determined she would write to the priest and
ask him to grant her an interview.
Her desertion of the parish church was observed, and of course nobody was
surprised that Miss Radcliffe had turned Papist. The old Radcliffes were
all Papists; there was Popery in the blood, and it came out like the
gout, missing a couple of generations. Then again there was the scar,
and Miss Radcliffe would never be married. One of the neighbours who
suggested the scar and maidenhood as a sufficient reason for apostasy was
a retired mill-owner, who was a Wesleyan Methodist when he was in
business in Manchester, but had become ostentatiously Anglican when he
retired into the country. The village blacksmith, whose ancestors had
worked at the same forge since the days of Queen Elizabeth, was a
fearless gentleman, and hated the mill-owner as an upstart. He therefore
made reply that ‘other people changed their religion because they wanted
to be respectable and get folk like the Radcliffes to visit them—which
they won’t,’ the last words being spoken with emphasis and scorn.
Mr. Radcliffe was much disturbed. To him Roman Catholicism was
superstition, and he wondered how any rational person could submit to it.
To be sure he assented every week to supernatural history and doctrines
presented to him in his own parish church, but to these he was
accustomed, and his reason, acute as it was, made no objection. There
was another cause for his distress. His only sister, whom he tenderly
loved, had become a foreign nun and was lost to him for ever. His life
was bound up with his child, and he dreaded intervention. It is all very
well to say that religious differences need not be a bar to friendship.
This is one of the commonplaces of people who understand neither
friendship nor religion. When Kate and he went for their long walks
together, they would no longer see the same hills; and there would always
be something behind her affection for him and above it. He was moodily
jealous, and it was unendurable that he should be supplanted by an
intruder who would hear secrets which were not entrusted to a parent.
There was still some hope. He did not know how far she had gone; and he
resolved to speak to her. One morning, as soon as breakfast was over, he
proposed an excursion; he could talk more freely in the open air. After
a few minutes’ indifferent conversation he asked her abruptly if she was
a Roman Catholic.
‘I cannot say.’
‘Cannot say! Do you still belong to our church?’
‘Father, do not question me.’
‘Ah! I see what has happened; it is lawful to hide from me, to
prevaricate and perhaps’—he checked himself. ‘You know that ever since
you have grown up I have hidden nothing from you. I have told you
everything about my own affairs: I have asked your counsel, for I am old,
and the wisdom of an old man is often folly. You have also told me
everything: you have opened your heart to me. Think of what you have
said to me: I have been mother and father to you. The trouble to me is
not merely that you believe in transubstantiation and I do not, but that
there is something in you which you reserve for a stranger. What has
come to you?—for God’s sake keep close to me for the few remaining years
or months of my life. Have you reflected on the absurdities of Romanism?
Is it possible that my Kate should kneel at the feet of an ignorant
priest!’
She was silent. She knew as little as her father of Roman Catholic
history and creeds.
He went on:
‘Your aunt, my dear sister—a more beautiful creature never walked this
earth—I do not know if she is alive or dead. Can that be true which
kills love?’
‘Father, father,’ she cried, sobbing, ‘nothing can separate us!’
He said no more on that subject, and seemed to recover his peace of mind,
although he was not really at rest. He was getting into years and he saw
that words were useless and that he must wait the issue of forces which
were beyond his control. ‘If she is to go, she must go: resistance will
make it worse for me: I must thank God if anything of her is left for me.
Thus spoke the weary submission of age, but it was not final, and the
half-savage desire for his child’s undivided love awoke in him again, and
he prayed that if he could not have it his end might soon come.
Kate’s love for her father was deep, but she could not move a single step
merely to pacify him. She could have yielded herself entirely to him in
worldly matters; she would have doubted many of her strongest beliefs if
he had contested them; she would have given up all her happiness for him;
she would have died for him; but she could not let go the faintest of her
religious dreams, although it was impossible to put them into words.
She wrote her letter to the priest. She found him living in a cottage
and was somewhat taken aback when she entered.
There were hardly any books to be seen, but a crucifix hung on the wall.
‘Miss Radcliffe—an old and honoured name! What can be the object of your
visit?’
‘Father, I am in distress. I want something which perhaps you can give.’
‘Ah, my child, I understand. You would like to confess, but you are
Protestant; I cannot absolve you. Return to the true fold and you can be
released.’
‘O Father, I have committed no crime; I come to you because I doubt and I
_must_ believe.’
The holy father was unused to such a penitent, and was perplexed and
agitated.
‘Doubt, my child—yes, even the faithful are sometimes troubled with
doubt, a temptation from the Enemy of souls. Were you one of the flock I
could prescribe for you. But perhaps you mean doubt of the heresies of
your communion. In that case I can recommend a little manual. Take it
away with you, study it, and see me again.’
‘Father,’ said Kate, pointing to the crucifix, ‘did He, the Son of God,
Son of the Virgin, really live on this earth? did He break His heart for
me? If He did, I am saved.’
‘Surely your own minister has instructed you on this point; it is the
foundation even of Protestantism.’
‘I prefer to seek instruction and guidance from you; answer me this one
question.’
‘Satan has never thus assaulted me, and I have never heard of any such
suggestion to one of my people. I am a poor parish priest. Take the
manual. It has been compiled by learned men: read it carefully with
prayer: I also will pray for you that you may be gathered into the
eternal Church.’
Kate took the manual and went home. There was but little history in it,
but there was much about the person of Christ. He was man and God
‘without confusion and without change.’ As man he had to learn as other
men learn, and, as God, he knew everything. He was sinless, and the
lusts of the flesh had no power over him, but he had a human body, and
was necessarily subject to its infirmities. His human nature was derived
from his mother. God was not born from her, and yet she was the mother
of God. Kate was able to see that some part of what looked like sheer
contradiction was the conjunction of opposites from which it is
impossible to escape in the attempt to express the Infinite, but in the
manual this contradiction was presented with repulsive hardness. The
compiler desired to subjugate and depose the reason. This was not the
Christ she wanted. She hungered for the God, the Man, at whose feet she
could have fallen: she would have washed them with tears, she would have
wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed them and anointed them
with ointment. She could have followed Him to the court of the High
Priest and have gloried in discipleship: she could have taken the thief’s
place beside Him on the cross, and she would not have exchanged those
moments of torture in companionship with Him for a life of earthly bliss.
But—that fatal _but_—did He ever live, did He still live, did He love
her, did He know how much she loved Him? Thus it has always been. There
is an impulse in man which drives him to faith; the commonplace world
does not satisfy him; he is forced to assume a divine object for his
homage and love, and when he goes out into the fields it has vanished.
Kate did not call again upon the priest. Her father came to the
conclusion that there was nothing in his suspicions, and that she had
been suffering from one of her not uncommon fits of nervous restlessness
and depression. This was a mercy, for his bodily health had begun to
fail. The winter was very severe, and in the dark days just before
Christmas he took to his bed and presently died, having suffered no pain
and with no obscuration of his mind until the last ten minutes. Kate had
nursed him with pious care: she was alone with him and closed his eyes
about four o’clock in the morning. At first she was overcome with
hysterical passion, and this was succeeded by shapeless thoughts which
streamed up in her incessantly as the mists stream up from a valley at
sunrise. Not until day broke did she leave the room and waken the
household.
An epoch is created rather by the person than by the event. The
experience which changes one man is nothing to another. Some will pass
through life without a mark from anything that happens to them; others
are transformed by a smile or a cloud. So also the same experience will
turn different men into totally different paths. Kate had never seen
death before. It smote her with such force that for months and months
her father was before her eyes and she could not convince herself that he
was not with her. But she went no further towards Roman Catholicism.
She let the facts stand. Once when she was walking on the moors she
stretched out her arms again and was urged to pray, but she felt that her
prayer would be loss of strength and she stood erect. For nearly a
twelvemonth she simply endured. She remembered a story in an old
_Amulet_, one of a series of annuals, bound in crimson cloth and
fashionable at that time, of a sailor stranded on a rock in the sea. The
waves rose to his lips, but he threw back his head, and at that moment
there was a pause and the tide turned. It might turn for her or it might
not; she must not move. She read scarcely any books and lived much in
the open air. The autumn was one of extraordinary splendour. September
rains after a dry summer washed the air and filled the tarns and becks.
Wherever she went she was accompanied by that most delicious sound of
falling waters. The clouds, which through July and August had been
nothing but undefined, barren vapour, gathered themselves together and
the interspaces of sky were once more brilliantly blue. Day after day
earth and heaven were almost too beautiful, for it was painful that her
finite apprehension should be unequal to such infinite loveliness. She
received no such answer as that for which she hoped when she knelt by the
grey rock, but that is the way with the celestial powers; they reply to
our passionate demands by putting them aside and giving us that for which
we did not ask. _We know not how to pray as we ought_.