end of the perfecting day of his career, when years of preparation were
tested in action. Action and victory had come and also unlooked-for
disaster.
He could return home and report a brilliant and decisive action, but
the nature of his casualties necessitated an inquiry. A great deal
of evidence was taken as to the explosion of the six-inch breech,
and as little as possible was allowed to reach the public. It was
proved that the gun had been made with every possible care, being
tested and regulated in every way. The metal itself was subjected to
a close examination, and found to be of the best. The only flaw was
traced to a slight superfluity of carbon, which remained inexplicable
amid the alloy, and no blame was attached to the maker, or to the
crew or captain who had had charge of her in action. This carbon had
undoubtedly brought about a weak point in the gun, and under pressure
she had exploded, though in practice she had been successfully fired.
It was an explanatory but unsatisfying report....
A month later--“Carbon is a material cause at least,” remarked the
captain to the chaplain, “and carbon could have come from a man.”
“That is a possible solution, if you think it likely that some man fell
accidentally into the gun when it was cast,” replied the chaplain.
“I know it,” said the captain, “for it was my suspicion, and a private
and careful inquiry has placed me in possession of the fact that this
gun came from a foundry where a man had been actually lost in the
molten metal.”
Both sat in stony silence, and then the captain rose to go.
“Whatever I saw and you saw and the ship’s crew saw, the cause was
material and a man.”
“Yes, and as you have had reason to observe, a man is a spirit,” said
the chaplain, returning to his duties....
THE MISSIONARY
The life web of Theodosia McSolomon was short but vividly painted and
could only be picked and plaited together from different angles of
the globe. To begin with, she was brought up strictly, straitly, and
even sanctimoniously by her father and mother, who were Presbyterian
Minister and Ministress in a secluded corner of the County Armagh in
Ireland. It was called Gortaherrin. She grew up to honour her father
and mother, though she could hardly have wished the long days promised
in the land for such servitude. She could hardly have desired long
life in their lifetime, for she served them more as a slavey than as a
daughter. Her brother Theophilus helped her with the harder work in the
kitchen until he went to college, whereupon she sank into the position
of servant except on Sundays, when she occupied the front pew at the
Meeting House. It remained a sign to her of salvation, social as well
as celestial.
She grew into graceful girlhood, tall, and healthy as the wild rush
under the sweetening sky; waxen-white, not the white of sickness, but
the white of the hawthorn’s limelight bloom on the hedgerows in spring.
Her nature stayed deliciously unspoilt, for she had never known a kind
word or a kind action, nor expected either. She lived on buttermilk
and eggs, and turf-baked soda-bread. She seemed content with her fate,
but for no particular reason except that fate was not discontented
with her. She had the essentials of life without a single extra.
Face-powder, love-letters, corsets were of the Devil! She was not
unhappy, for she had never known what it was to be happy. And healthier
she grew and fairer and more wiry in all her curving limbs, but her
hair was not wire. It was best described as spun primrose petals; spun
into a thin silken weft. It was of a texture that made the daffodil
look coarse and the yellow-wagtail seem painted. The closest clue in
nature was the glint of the full harvest moon on the yellow shooks of
the bogland corn when ripe and reaped. It was as thin and nearly as
transparent as a thread of baby’s spit, each hair of her. And she wore
it in the shape of a little tight unwieldy bun like a tennis ball that
has collected cobwebs.
Her garments were ghastly. One annual skirt. Mother’s old hats trimmed
with ribbon. Father’s cast combinations patched and reefed with
thick darning thread. A scarecrow’s purgatory in sum! The good girl
sincerely did not wish to be any expense to her dear parents. She was
given no opportunity to be so. Mother would have liked to have been
affectionate, but affection had been mangled out of her. She asked
nothing of a life in which she perceived nothing. All was in the life
to come. Without meaning it, she weighed like wet washing on Theodosia.
Father was always as erect as an arrow and as indeflectible as the
Grace in which he was imbued and abounding. He stood in Grace up to
the ear-lobes. His high hat was smooth with Grace and his boots were
greased therewith. His only trouble in life was how to give unto others
out of his over-abundance of Grace. Mother had Grace, sufficient for
salvation, though father had had his doubts of her once, returning
from their honeymoon. Theodosia ought to have had Grace, for everything
humanly possible had been done to instil the divine condiment into her
soul. However, she had always been a very unresponsive child. Even at
her baptism she had not cried, to the amazement and disappointment of
the old Irish woman who held her and believed that departing demons
should cause screams in the normal way. Apparently they had preferred
to stay. And later Theodosia’s honey-coloured hair had given further
anxiety to the old woman who had tended her with some goats and hens in
childhood. It was not quite the same colour as the scutched flax which
yellow hair should resemble. It was stranger still. Her mother must
have been overlooked by the fairies before Theodosia was born. Farmers’
maids would never let her see the churn or a new-born calf for fear of
blinking the milk or overlooking their cattle. They thought her hair
unlucky. It was not a decent human colour.
In the vacation her brother brought home a fellow-student from Trinity,
Josiah McWherry. He was a lithe and likely lad. All day Josiah and
Theophilus studied for the Ministry, and in the evening they conversed
with the Minister’s family. The Minister was of great use to the boys
on any point of philology or philosophy. He had swept gold medals into
the full of his student’s cap. On Sunday nights he would only talk
Doctrine, and he was still fervent against Unitarians, with whom there
had been great controversy in his youth. He used to talk about the
great Doctor Hanna--“Roaring Hanna.” And he always ended upon a great
orthodox note: “As the Father is God, so is the Son God, and the Holy
Ghost is God.” He was a Trinitarian to the backbone, and would have
stood stiffer than a stake in the flames. However, there was nothing
except Unitarians and Papists for him to feel stiff about in his young
day. Home Rule and women’s bicycling came later. Spiders scuttled and
beam-lice somersaulted when he spoke on either of those subjects. One
was the destruction of the Union with England, and the other of the
marriage-union. He would not give Home Rule to Papists or to women. It
was by the firelight, listening to Dr. McSolomon, that Josiah first saw
the glint of silvery golden-grey in Theodosia’s hair. When she leaned
over the blazing turf, the red light played through the long plaits.
They were allowed to be let down in the evening, and the effect by fire
was like mulled claret poured over melting butter--not that Josiah knew
the joys of claret at any temperature. But he looked long and often at
the primrose hair and contrasted it with the flower face, which was
always as white as snow--white as the fuller’s earth, thought Josiah
scripturally. But he kept his thoughts to his presbytical self, and not
till he returned to Trinity did he indite a series of sensible letters
concerning sights in Dublin, which Theodosia was allowed to read after
perusal by each parent in turn. Naught suspecting or imagining, she
wrote a nice answer full of Gortaherrin news, and a pleasant, callow
correspondence was opened between the Manse and that famous seat of
learning in Dublin. Correspondence was encouraged, as it gave city news
to the old birds. Josiah returned for the next vacation, and ventured
to propose to Theodosia. She accepted him from a mixture of ingrained
modesty and obedience. Her parents were not informed owing to her
total innocence, and took no suspicion until an incautious love-letter
sent to her (care of a romantic local post-mistress) and sewed into
Theodosia’s pillow was found by Theodosia’s mother and handed to
Theodosia’s father, who was unable to speak for several days. He always
acted slowly and deliberately. Hasty wrath or unweighed reprobation
was neither in his policy nor of his temperament. Theodosia was not
lectured or beaten or accused of any specific crime, but she was
locked into her bedroom for a fortnight and nourished upon the bread
of affliction and the water of tears. The letter received no allusion
at home, but she never received another. Josiah McWherry wrote four
Sundays in succession and received no answer. Puzzled, he stopped
writing. She obviously did not enjoy reading in ink what she had
allowed him to whisper over the firelight or when she was washing the
delph. He was a faint lover.
She took her medicine well, though she imagined she had touched the
outskirts of romance. A gentle thrill had attuned her, though Josiah
had only proposed a nice arrangement for her, a sort of transfer
in domestic service for the future, and she had wrongfully kept it
from her parents. Love was a term of mixed meaning to her. Love was
something peculiar to God, and mortals who indulged in love got
into trouble. God so loved the world that He had damned most of
their neighbours, the Roman Catholics for sure, and the more-worldly
Episcopalians, who went to the Horse Show and Monte Carlo to spend
their rents. Theodosia came out of her room chastened. The rod of John
Calvin had been thrust under her milky skin. It was a priceless skin,
for which many a woman of the world would have flayed her own in
exchange. It was as clear and clean as wind-flowers reflected in the
moonlight water.
She had not seen her father during the fortnight. He was waiting for
her in his study. With one terrible frown he absolved and abolished
the past. Then he revealed the future. Correspondence of any kind
was forbidden. She must promise never to write to Josiah again, and
she promised, giving her simple word, that was as adamantine as that
of Medes and Persians. She had undoubtedly written more than one
love-letter herself, or Josiah would not have been beguiled into his
evil communications. Dr. McSolomon regarded her as a lapsed child until
she had atoned. Grace might still be applied mercifully. Grace had
been noticed to reside to a fuller degree than usual in a neighbouring
minister, Mr. Caleb McRoarty, a sober, steady and godly-minded widower
living in those circumstances which never receive the meed of pity and
attention accorded to the state of widowhood. When has a merry widower
been bespoken? Mr. McRoarty might be expected to call any day and press
his suit, which Theodosia was reminded needed no pressing. She would
have a chance to become mistress of her delph and her mangle, and to
preside over a Manse of her own.
This was the second time Theodosia felt her life stirred to the core.
It gave her intense repulsion and she shrank like a flower into its
half-opened bud. When Mr. McRoarty called, she wished for the first
time that she had never been born, but she showed no tremor, no
protest, no scene. She had a deep feeling that her life must turn
far otherwise, and, when her parents left her in the kitchen with
Mr. McRoarty she heard him with present smiling and absent mind. He
was well-meaning and inclined to be absorbent. The first touch of
absorption was pain to Theodosia, but in the circumstances Mr. McRoarty
believed his caress had been not only permissible but acceptable. He
embraced her over and over. It was his way of clinching a bargain. He
had already given her father a cow. It was an exchange in kind, and
Theodosia seemed willingly his. Sentiment might be thrown into the
bargain. But his clutching arms tore down the curtain, and she suddenly
glimpsed life in a Manse with this black-coated but fangless gorilla.
He was not cruel or vicious to look at, not very amorous even, unless
it was of her hair, which he fastened into a plait and rubbed over
his mouth. Theodosia started like a sensitive human violin. She could
not bear to be scraped by those large hands, though they thumbed the
Gospel; or kissed by those thin lips, though anointed with the dew of a
thousand sermons. She shivered and writhed until he stopped. She stood
in a stupor without saying a word till he went out and bade good night
to her complacent parents.
Then the break came. Hurrying into the kitchen she washed until she had
washed her face clean and clean, and brushed until she had brushed his
stickiness out of her hair. What was she to do? She felt like wax that
could not rid itself of his impression. She blew out the candle and
still saw him gibbering round her in the dark with the horrible agility
of old men who momentarily believe themselves young. His flaccid kisses
still sounded in her ear-drums. She lit the light again and determined
to write to Josiah, who was living with his father in Belfast. Yet she
had promised, and to break a promise was to go to Hell. Then the elfin
element in her made a nudge. Why not send Josiah an empty envelope? It
was a sign to be interpreted and it was not exactly writing a letter.
She addressed an envelope and wrote nothing within. But would he
understand that it meant an empty heart, blank despair and appeal for
help? But the fairy part of her worked like a charm. She snipped off a
primrose tress of her hair, placed it inside the envelope and ran with
it in the night to the post office. She couldn’t have written less. She
couldn’t have sent more. And she had not broken her Christian word!
Josiah had the courage or curiosity of youth to understand, for he
came over from his father’s Manse three days later. She was lucky
enough to see him in the road before he took the turn into the Manse.
She ran to meet him and to tell him all. When they came to the Manse
door, her father was waiting. He did not seem to mind Josiah’s
arrival, and let him stay to supper, questioning him kindly about his
examinations. Josiah found himself alone with the old man and plucked
courage to mention his case. “Theodosia and I had kind words together
last vacation and I hope you did not mind the letters I could not help
writing to her. I know she showed them to you.”
Dr. McSolomon smiled a deep and saturnine smile. He so seldom smiled
that the motion produced a little stiffness in his face for the rest
of the evening. When it was time for Josiah to leave, he informed him
quietly that Mr. Caleb McRoarty had made successful application for
Theodosia’s hand and that he intended marrying them himself the next
month. As a matter of fact Dr. McSolomon had only intended to inform
Caleb of this the next morning. That evening Josiah informed Theodosia.
This was the third shock she had felt in her life, pleasurable or
otherwise. Pleasurable had been the coming of Josiah to Gortaherrin,
far from pleasurable the wooing of Caleb; but the bare announcement of
her marriage with Caleb, though the greatest shock of all, gave her
neither pleasure nor pain. It conveyed the emancipation of disaster.
Everything was combining to the decisive moment, even Caleb who had
shot his bolt too soon. She had felt his horrid hook, like the minnow
grazed by the rusty pin of a schoolboy’s coarse fishing line. If it
were not for the memory of that foul embrace she would have remained
and swallowed the fate her parents designed for her; unconsentingly
no doubt; ruefully resentful perhaps, and cowed unto humiliation, and
certainly embittered to all time. In thirty years she thought she would
probably resemble her mother, a bootmat in disposition, and rather like
an old boot in shape. Her hair would become like her mother’s, snowy
white. While there was colour in her hair, it seemed there was hope.
Hope for what? Josiah had already started walking down the drive. She
slipped from the kitchen door across the fields and awaited him in
the high road. When she acted, she always acted without thinking, out
of a lonely and gallant instinct. She was of the blood of the martyrs
of the Covenant, and then the fairy in her bade her not lose the man
she had once summoned out of the void by casting with a lock of hair.
She went and she met him hasting away with that lock clutched in his
hand. When she glimpsed it she knew that fate was blazing her path.
He had hardly risen to the moment, but it was her fate, not his, that
possessed the moment. Perhaps he had no fate, only a soul and that a
cut and dried and preserved specimen. Perhaps she had no soul, only a
tremendous fate. She simply told him that she was coming with him to
the station, and at the station she told him she would come with him
to Belfast, where he was living with his father, and in Belfast she
intended to tell him she would marry him. He began nervously counting
the money in his pocket as soon as she broached Belfast. There was just
enough to bring them both there. He trembled counting it to the station
master. She noticed his emotion and pressed his other hand. She could
feel her lock of hair rustling between his damp fingers, and she knew
it was well. They sat and talked for two wonderful hours to each other
in the ill-lit third-class compartment, and even in the dirty oil-light
her hair assumed supernatural glow. Their plan was unsophisticated.
They would join hands before his father and swear themselves man and
wife according to the marriage law of Scotland. They did so on arrival
and remained the night under the roof of the surprised Josiah Senior,
Theodosia sleeping with the still more surprised Mrs. Josiah Senior,
while father and son discussed the next move in the kitchen. They
decided that Dr. McSolomon must be faced with a clean breast, the
fullest apology must be offered and humble entreaty made to suffer
their marriage to remain. They both agreed that Theodosia, knowing her
father so well, was the proper person to carry this out.
Next morning, Theodosia was singularly and poignantly recalled from
the realm of romance to acute realism, when she left the bedroom of
Mrs. Josiah Senior for the breakfast table and heard her bold rescuer
suggest that she should return and explain matters to her father.
She sat shyly and silently, wondering and watching. Then she shook
her tangled head and Mr. Josiah Senior said that he would take the
journey to prepare the way for her, and he was as good as his word.
He returned late in the evening and reported that terms were possible
though the wrath of Dr. McSolomon was terrible. He learnt from the
mother that he had deliberately cursed his daughter, and a frightened
farm-girl had expressed the fears of the household by saying that his
curses had killed the house spiders in their webs! On learning that
some form of service, some rag of respectability, had been clutched
by the sinful pair in the presence of a Minister of the Gospel, he
had remained silent for an hour and had then declared that since the
neighbours, assisted by the romantic postmistress and the Episcopalian
station master, had already put the gossip over ten parishes that his
daughter had run away with another Minister’s son, Josiah had better
marry her outright and keep her for ever. He made no conditions except
that Josiah should go abroad with her or, if he continued to work for
the Ministry, go on the mission field. He forbade utterly Josiah or
Theodosia setting foot within Gortaherrin Manse until the hour of their
death or his, but he held out the appetising suggestion that he would
come and unite them finally under their new roof in Belfast.
That delicate and indelible scene actually occurred. Josiah had had
the presence of mind to leave the house by the back entrance when
he sighted the rectangular Minister of Gortaherrin standing at the
doorstep. There could be no description of the hard white mask in
his face save that every angle was an acute angle. The gesture with
which he had smoothed his grey silky beard was an indication that
he considered scandal had been averted by narrow margins, though
his brother Minister showed him the large, unseductive bed in which
Theodosia and Mrs. Josiah Senior had passed and continued to pass night
time. Next to scandal, Dr. McSolomon hated most the sense of being
thwarted, and Theodosia had thwarted him bitterly. She had raised a
power before which domestic tyranny had failed and the walls enclosing
the Manse had fallen like the walls of Jericho. Bitterly he thought of
Rahab and the scarlet thread which that ingenious lady had shown from
her window, and he cursed Rahab and Theodosia in the same breath. He
declined to see or bless his daughter, but, to save allusions in the
local paper and his good name from the postmistress, he was willing
to be present with his wife at a public ceremony and the sooner the
better. Josiah agreed to take Theodosia into the foreign mission field,
and the rite took place in accordance with the Presbyterian Church of
Ireland. Josiah took Theodosia to be his lawful wedded, lawful bedded
wife, and slept with a gentle primrose cloud about his head. Neither
before nor after the ceremony did Theodosia’s father speak to her
except for one terrible moment when for the first time they were alone
in the waiting-room of the railway station, and Theodosia, greatly
moved, threw herself on her knees to ask a father’s blessing, if not
his forgiveness. But Dr. McSolomon never unbent, though at least he
spoke two words: “Shoo, Whore!”
He was of the iron calibre of the Covenanter, indeflectible of Grace
and inexorable of judgment. When his eye offended him he plucked it
out, and when his daughter offended him he vomited her overseas. It was
very doubtful to him now whether she would save her soul, but at least
he had saved appearances. He was of the relentless stock that breeds
martyrs and of the blood that crieth against Nineveh. But home scandal
is worst.
* * * * *