FRANCIS TAXATER
The day following the one whose persuasive influence we have just
recorded was not less auspicious. The weather seemed to have effected
a transference of its accustomed quality, bringing to the banks of the
Yeo and the Parret the atmospheric conditions belonging to those of the
Loire or the Arno.
Having finished her tea Valentia Seldom was strolling meditatively up
and down the vicarage terrace, alternately stopping to pick off the
petals of a dead flower, or to gaze, with a little gloomy frown, upon
the grass of the orchard.
Her slender upright figure, in her black silk dress, made a fine
contrast to the rich green foliage about her, set on one side with
ruby-coloured roses and on the other with yellow buttercups. But the
old lady was in no peaceful frame of mind. Every now and then she
tapped the gravel impatiently with her ebony stick; and the hand that
toyed with the trinkets at her side mechanically closed and unclosed
its fingers under the wrist-band of Mechlin lace. It was with something
of an irritable start, that she turned round to greet Francis Taxater,
as led by the little servant he presented himself to her attention.
He moved to greet her with his usual imperturbable gravity, walking
sedately along the edge of the flowery border; with one shoulder a
little higher than the other and his eyes on the ground.
His formidable prelatical chin seemed more than ever firmly set that
afternoon, and his grey waistcoat, under his shabby black coat, was
tightly drawn across his emphatic stomach. His coal-black eyes,
darkened yet further by the shadow of his hat, glanced furtively to
right and left of him as he advanced. In the manner peculiar to persons
disciplined by Catholic self-control, his head never followed, by the
least movement, the shrewd explorations of these diplomatic eyes.
One would have taken him for a French bishop, of aristocratic race,
masquerading, for purposes of discretion, in the dress of a secular
scholar.
Everything about Francis Taxater, from the noble intellectual contours
of his forehead, down to his small satyr-like feet, smacked of the
courtier and the priest; of the learned student, and the urbane
frequenter of sacred conclaves. His small white hand, plump and
exquisitely shaped, rested heavily on his cane. He carried with him
in every movement and gesture that curious air of dramatic weight and
importance which men of diplomatic experience are alone able to use
without letting it degenerate into mannerism. It was obvious that he,
at any rate, according to Mr. Quincunx’s favourite discrimination,
“knew Latin.” He seemed to have slid, as it were, into this commercial
modern world, from among the contemporaries of Bossuet. One felt that
his authors were not Ibsen or Tolstoy, but Horace and Cicero.
One felt also, however, that in sheer psychological astuteness not even
Mr. Romer himself would be a match for him. Between those two, the
man of modern wisdom and the man of ancient wisdom, any struggle that
might chance to occur would be a singularly curious one. If Mr. Taxater
really was “on the side of the angels,” he was certainly there with
the full weight of organized hierarchies. If he did exert his strength
upon the side of “meekness,” it would be a strength of no feverish,
spasmodic eruption.
If Satan threw a Borgia in Mr. Taxater’s path, that Borgia, it
appeared, would find his Machiavel.
“Yes, it is a lovely day again,” said the old lady, leading her visitor
to a seat and placing herself by his side. “But what is our naughty
Monsignor doing, playing truant from his consistory? I thought you
would be in London this week--at the Eucharist Conference your people
are holding? Is it to the loveliness of the weather that we owe this
pleasant surprise?”
One almost expected--so formal and old-fashioned were the two
interlocutors--that Mr. Taxater would have replied, in the tone of
Ivanhoe or the Talisman, “A truce to such jesting, Madam!” No doubt
if he had, the lady would hardly have discerned any anachronism. As a
matter of fact he did not answer her question at all, but substituted
one of his own.
“I met Vennie in the village,” he said. “Do you think she is happier
now, in her new English circle?”
“Ah! my friend,” cried the old lady, in a nervous voice, “it is of
Vennie that I have been thinking all this afternoon. No, I cannot say I
think she is happier. I wonder if it is one thing; and then I wonder if
it is another. I cannot get to the bottom of it and it worries me.”
“I expect it is her nerves,” said the diplomatist. “Though the sun is
so warm, there has been a constant east wind lately; and, as you know,
I put down most of our agitations to the presence of east wind.”
“It will not do, Mr. Taxater; it will not do! It may be the east wind
with you and me. It is not the east wind with Vennie. Something is
troubling her. I wish I could discern what it is?”
“She isn’t by any chance being vexed by some theological dispute with
the Vicar, is she? I know how seriously she takes all his views.
And his views are, if I may say so, decidedly confusing. Don’t
misunderstand me, dear lady. I respect Mr. Clavering and admire him.
I like the shape of his head; especially when he wears his beretta.
But I cannot feel much confidence in his wisdom in dealing with a
sensitive child like your daughter. He is too impulsive. He is too
dogmatic. He lives too entirely in the world of doctrinal controversy.
It is dangerous”; here Mr. Taxater luxuriously stretched out his legs
and lit a cigarette; “it is dangerous to live only for theology. We
have to learn to live for Religion; and that is a much more elaborate
affair. _That_ extends very far, Mrs. Seldom.” The old lady let her
stick slide to the ground and clasped her hands together. “I want to
ask you one thing, Mr. Taxater. And I implore you to be quite direct
with me. You do not think, do you, that my girl is tending towards
_your_ church--towards Rome? I confess it would be a heavy blow to me,
one of the heaviest I have ever had, if anything of that kind happened.
I know you are tolerant enough to let me speak like this without
scruple. I like _you_, my dear friend--” Here a soft flush spread over
Valentia’s ivory-coloured cheeks and she made a little movement as if
to put her hand on her companion’s arm. “I like you yourself, and have
the utmost confidence in you. But Oh, it would be a terrible shock to
me if Vennie became a Roman Catholic. She would enter a convent; I
_know_ she would enter a convent and that would be more than I could
bear.” The accumulated distress of many years was in the old lady’s
voice and tears stood in her eyes. “I know it is silly,” she went on as
Mr. Taxater steadily regarded the landscape. “But I cannot help it. I
do so hope--Oh, I can’t tell you how much--that Vennie will marry and
have children. It is the secret burden of my life, the thought that,
with this frail little thing, our ancient race should disappear. I feel
it my deepest duty--my duty to the Past and my duty to the Future--to
arrange a happy marriage for her. If only that could be achieved, I
should be able to die content.”
“You have no evidence, no authority for thinking,” said Mr. Taxater
gravely, “that she is meditating any approach to _my_ church, as you
call it, have you?”
“Oh no!” cried the old lady, “quite the contrary. She seems absorbed
in the services here. She works with Mr. Clavering, she discusses
everything with Mr. Clavering, she helps Mr. Clavering with the poor. I
believe”--here Valentia lowered her voice; “I believe she confesses to
Mr. Clavering.”
Francis Taxater smiled--the smile of the heir of Christendom’s classic
faith at these pathetic fumblings of heresy--and carefully knocked the
ashes from his cigarette against the handle of his cane.
“You don’t think, dear lady,” he said, “that by any chance--girls are
curiously subtle in these little things--she is ‘in love,’ as they call
it, with our nice handsome Vicar?”
Valentia gave an involuntary little start. In her heart there rose up
the shadow of a shadow of questioning, whether in this last remark the
great secular diplomatist had not lapsed into something approaching a
“faux pas.”
“Certainly not,” she answered. “Vennie is not a girl to mix up her
religion with things of that sort.”
Francis Taxater permitted the flicker of a smile to cross his face. He
slightly protruded his lower lip which gave his countenance a rather
sinister expression. His look said, more clearly than words, that in
his opinion there was no woman on earth who did not “mix up these
things” with her religion.
“I have not yet made my request to you,” continued the old lady, with
a certain nervous hesitation. “I am so afraid lest you should think
it an evidence of a lack of confidence. It isn’t so! It really isn’t
so. I only do it to relieve my mind;--to make my food taste better, if
you understand?--and to stop this throbbing in my head.” She paused
for a moment, and picking up her stick, prodded the gravel with it,
with lowered face. The voices of not less than three wood-pigeons were
audible from the apple-orchard. And this soft accompaniment to her
words seemed to give her courage. Fate could not, surely, altogether
betray her prayers, in a place so brooded over by “the wings of the
dove.” In the exquisite hush of the afternoon the birds’ rich voices
seemed to take an almost liturgical tone--as though they were the
ministers of a great natural temple. To make a solemn request of
a dear friend under such conditions was almost as though one were
exacting a sacred vow under the very shadow of the altar.
So at least Valentia felt, as she uttered her serious petition; though
it may well be that Mr. Taxater, skilled in the mental discipline of
Saint Ignatius, knew better how to keep the distracting influences of
mere “Nature,” in their proper secondary place.
“I want you faithfully to promise me,” she said, “that you will in
no way--in no way at all--use your influence over Vennie to draw her
from her English faith.” The old lady’s voice became quite husky in
her emotion. “It would be dreadful to me to think,--I could not bear
to think”--she went on, “that you should in the smallest degree use
your great powers of mind to disturb the child’s present attitude. If
she is not happy, it is not--Oh, I assure you, it is not--in any sense
due to her being dissatisfied with her religion. It must be something
quite different. What it is, I cannot guess; but it must be something
quite different from _that_. Well, dear friend,” and she did now, quite
definitely, lay her hand on his arm, “will you promise this for me? You
will? I know you will.”
Francis Taxater rose from his seat and stood over her very gravely,
leaning upon his cane.
“You have done well to tell me this, Mrs. Seldom,” he said. “Most
certainly I shall make no attempt to influence Vennie. It would be
indeed contrary to all that I regard as wise and suitable in the
relations between us. I never convert people. I believe you will find
that very few of those who are born Catholics ever interfere in that
way. It is the impetuosity of new-comers into the church that gives
us this bad name. They often carry into their new faith the turbulent
theological zeal which distinguished them in their old one. I, at any
rate, am not like that. I leave people alone. I prefer to watch them
develop on their own lines. The last thing I should wish to do would
be to meddle with Vennie’s religious taste. It would be a blunder as
well as an impertinence. Vennie would be the first to resist any such
proceeding. It would destroy her respect for me. It might even destroy
her affection for me. It certainly would not move her. Indeed, dear
lady, if I wished to plant the child’s soul irrevocably in the soil
prepared by our good vicar I could not do anything more effective
than try to persuade her of its deficiencies. No, no! You may rely
upon me to stand completely aside in this matter. If Vennie _were_
led to join us--which for your sake, dear Mrs. Seldom, I hope will
never happen,--you may accept my word of honour it will be from her
own spontaneous impulse. I shall make not the least movement in the
direction you fear. _That_ I can devoutly promise.”
He turned away his head and regarded with calm, placid detachment the
rich, shadowy orchard and the golden buttercups.
The contours of his profile were so noble, and the pose of his head so
majestic, that the agitated mother was soothed and awed into complete
confidence.
“Thank God!” she exclaimed. “_That_ fear, at any rate, has passed. I
shall be grateful to you forever, dear friend, for what you have just
now said. It is a direct answer to my prayers.”
“May I, in my turn,” said Mr. Taxater, resuming his seat by her side,
“ask you a bold and uncalled for question? What would you do, if in
the changes and chances of this life, Vennie _did_ come to regard Mr.
Clavering with favour? Would you for a moment consider their union as a
possible one?”
Valentia looked not a little embarrassed. Once more, in her heart, she
accused the urbane scholar of a lack of delicacy and discretion. These
little questions are not the ones to put to a perturbed mother.
However, she answered him plainly enough. “I should not like it, I
confess. It would disappoint me. I am not ambitious, but sometimes I
catch myself desiring, for my beloved child, a marriage that would give
her the position she deserves, the position--pardon a woman’s weakness,
sir!--that her ancestors held in this place. But then, again, I am only
anxious for her happiness. No, Mr. Taxater. If such a thing did occur
I should not oppose it, Mr. Clavering is a gentleman, though a poor
one and, in a sense, an eccentric one. But I have no prejudice against
the marriage of our clergy. In fact I think they ought to marry. It
is so suitable, you know, to have a sensible woman endowed with such
opportunities for making her influence felt. I would not wish Vennie to
marry beneath her, but sooner than not see her married--well!--That is
the kind of feeling I have about it, Mr. Taxater.”
“Thank you--thank you. I fear my question was impertinent; but in
return for the solemn oath you exacted from me, I think I deserved some
reward, don’t you? But seriously, Mrs. Seldom, I do not think that any
of these less desirable fates will befall our dear child. I think she
will marry a pillar of the aristocracy, and remain herself a pillar of
the Anglican Church! I trust she will not, whatever happens, lose her
regard for her old Catholic friend.”
He rose as he spoke and held out his hand. Mrs. Seldom took it in her
own and held it for a moment with some emotion. Had he been a real
Monsignor, he could not have looked more calm, more tolerant, more
kind, than he looked at that moment. He wore the expression that high
ecclesiastics must come to wear, when devoted but somewhat troublesome
daughters of the church press close to kiss the amethystine ring.
A few minutes later he was passing out of the vicarage gate. The new
brood of warblers that flitted about the tall bushes at that spot
heard--with perfect unconcern--a mysterious Latin quotation issue
from that restrained mouth. They could hardly be blamed for not
understanding, even though they had migrated to these fields of heresy
from more classic places, that the plain English interpretation of the
dark saying was that all things are lawful to him whose motive is the
“Potestas Civitatis Dei!”
He crossed the dusty road and was proceeding towards his own house,
which was hardly more than a hundred yards away, when he saw through
a wide gap in the hedge a pleasant and familiar sight. It was a
hay-field, in the final stage of its “making,” surrendering to a great
loose stack, built up beneath enormous elm-trees, the last windrows of
its sweet-scented harvest.
Pausing for a moment to observe more closely this pleasant scene--for
hay-making in Dorsal Field amounted to a village ritual--Mr. Taxater
became aware that among the figures scattered in groups about the
meadow were the very two whose relation to one another he had just been
discussing. Vennie and the young clergyman were engaged in an animated
conversation with three of the farm-boys.
Mr. Taxater at once climbed through the gap, and crossing the field
approached the group unobserved. It was not till he was quite close
that Vennie caught sight of him. Her pale, pinched little face, under
its large hat, flushed slightly as she held out her hand; but her great
steady grey eyes were full of friendly welcome.
Mr. Clavering too was effusive and demonstrative in his greeting.
They chatted a little of indifferent matters, and the theologian was
introduced to the shy farm-boys, who stared at him in rustic wonder.
Then Hugh Clavering said, “If you’ll pardon me for a moment, I think
I ought to go across and speak to John Goring,” and he indicated the
farmer’s figure bending over a new gleaning-machine, at the opposite
end of the field. “Don’t go away, please, Mr. Taxater, till I come
back. You will keep him, won’t you, Miss Seldom?”
He strode off; and the boys drifted away after him, leaving Mr. Taxater
and the girl together, under the unfinished hay-stack. “I was so much
wanting to speak to you,” began Vennie at once. “I very nearly ran in
to the Gables; but I saw Mrs. Wotnot over the wall, and she told me you
were out. I am in serious need of advice upon a thing that is troubling
me, and you are the only person who can really help.”
The expression of Mr. Taxater’s face at that moment was so sympathetic,
and yet so grave, that one would hardly have been surprised to hear
him utter the conventional formula of a priest awaiting confession.
Though unuttered, the sacred formula must have been telepathically
communicated, for Vennie continued without a pause, holding her hands
behind her back, and looking on the ground. “Ever since our last
serious conversation--do you remember?--after Easter, I have been
thinking so much about that phrase of yours, referring to the Pope, as
the eternal living defender of the idea of Love as the secret of the
universe. Mr. Clavering talks to me about love--you know what I mean,”
she smiled and blushed prettily, with a quick lifting of her head, “but
he never gives me the feeling of something real and actual which we can
approach on earth--something personal, I mean. And I have been feeling
so much lately that this is what I want. Mr. Clavering is very gentle
with me when I try to explain my difficulties to him; but I don’t think
he really understands. The way he talks is beautiful and inspiring--but
it somehow sounds like poetry. It does not give me anything to lay
hands on.” And she looked into Mr. Taxater’s face with a pathetic
wide-eyed appeal, as if he were able to call down angels from heaven.
“Dear child,” said the diplomatist, “I know only too well what you
mean. Yes, that is the unfortunate and necessary limitation of a
heretical church. It can only offer mystic and poetic consolations. It
has lost touch with the one true Vine, and consequently the full stream
of life-giving sap cannot flow through its veins.”
“But I have felt so strengthened,” said Vennie mournfully, “by the
sacrament in our Church; so strengthened and inspired! It seems
dreadful that it should all be a sort of mockery.”
“Do not speak like that, dear child,” said Mr. Taxater. “God is good;
and in his knowledge of our weakness he permits us to taste of his
mystery even in forbidden cups. The motive in your heart, the faith
in your soul, have been pure; and God has given to them some measure,
though but an imperfect one, of what he will grant to your complete
obedience.”
Vennie bent down and picking up a swathe of sweet-scented hay twisted
it thoughtfully in her fingers. “God has indeed been working miracles
on your behalf,” continued Mr. Taxater. “It must have been your
guardian angel that led me to speak to you as I did at that time. For
in future, I regret to say, I shall be less free. But the good work has
been done. The seed has been sown. What follows must be at your own
initiative.”
Vennie looked at him, puzzled, and rather alarmed. “Why do you say you
will be less free? Are we going to have no more lovely conversations at
the bottom of our orchard? Are you going to be too busy to see me at
all?”
Mr. Taxater smiled. “Oh no, it isn’t as bad as that,” he said. “It is
only that I have just faithfully promised your mother not to convert
you to Catholicism.”
“Mother had no right to make you give any such promise,” cried the girl
indignantly.
“No,” responded the diplomatist, “she had no such right. No one has
a right to demand promises of that kind. It is one of the worst and
subtlest forms of persecution.”
“But you did not promise? You surely did not promise?”
“There was no escaping it,” replied Mr. Taxater. “If I had not done so
she would have given you no peace, and your future movements would have
been mercilessly watched. However,” he went on, smilingly, “a promise
exacted under that kind of compulsion must be interpreted in a very
large and liberal way. Relatively I must avoid discussing these things
with you. In a higher and more absolute sense we will combine our
thoughts about them, day and night, until we worship at the same altar.”
Vennie was silent. The noble and exalted sophistry of the subtle
scholar puzzled and bewildered her. “But I have no idea of what to do
next,” she protested. “I know no Catholics but you. I should feel very
nervous on going to the priest in Yeoborough. Besides, I don’t at all
like the look of him. And the people here say he is often drunk. You
wouldn’t send me to a man like that, would you? Oh, I feel so angry
with mother! She had no right to go to you behind my back.”
Francis Taxater laid his hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. “There is
no reason for haste,” he said. “There is no cause to agitate yourself.
Just remain quietly as you are. Say nothing to your mother. It would
only cause her unnecessary distress. I never promised not to lend you
books. All my shelves are at your service. Read, my dear Vennie, read
and think. My books will supply the place of my words. Indeed, they
will serve the purpose much better. In this way we shall at once be
obeying your earthly mother, and not disobeying your heavenly mother,
who is now--Ave Maria gratiæ plena!--drawing you so strongly towards
her.”
“Shall I say anything to Mr. Clavering?”
“Not a word! not a word! And enter as little as possible into argument
with him. If he fancies, from your silence, that he has quelled your
doubts, let him fancy so. The mistake will be due to his own pride and
not to any deception. It is wrong to lie--but we are not called upon to
dispel illusions arising from the self-conceit of others.”
“But you--will--think--of me?” pleaded little Vennie. “I may know that
you have not deserted me? That you are always ready--always there?”
Mr. Taxater smiled benignly. “Of course I shall be ready, dear child.
And you must be ready. That is why I only ask you to read and think.
God will answer your prayers if you show patience. He has taught his
church never to clamour for hurried conversions. But to wait, with all
her reservoirs of mysteries, till they come to her of their own accord.
You will come, Vennie, you will come! But it will be in God’s hour and
not in ours.”
Vennie Seldom thanked him with a timid glance of infinite gratitude and
confidence. A soft luminous happiness suffused her being, into which
the scents and sounds of that felicitous hour poured their offerings of
subtle contentment. In after years, in strange and remote places, she
never forgot the high thrilling exultation, calm, yet passionate as an
indrawn wave, of that unrecurring moment.
The security that filled her passed, indeed, only too quickly away.
Her face clouded and a little anxious frown puckered her narrow white
forehead.
“There is something else I wanted to ask you,” she said hurriedly,
“and I must say it quickly because I am afraid of Mr. Clavering coming
back. It has to do with Mr. Clavering. I do not think you realize what
influence you have over people, what powerful influence! Mr. Clavering
adores you. He would do anything for you. He respects you as a thinker.
He venerates you as a good man. Now, Mr. Taxater, please, please,
use your influence with him to save him--to save him--” She stopped
abruptly, and a flood of colour rushed to her cheeks.
“To save him from what, dear child? I am afraid there is no hope of Mr.
Clavering coming to our way of thinking.”
“It isn’t that, Mr. Taxater! It’s something else;--something to do with
his own happiness, with his own life. Oh, it is so hard for me to tell
you!” She clenched her hands tightly together and looked steadily away
from him as she spoke. “It is that that dreadful Gladys Romer has been
plaguing him so--tempting him to flirt with her, to be silly about
her, and all that sort of thing. He does not really like her at all.
That I _know_. But he is passionate and excitable, and easily led away
by a girl like that. Oh, it all sounds so absurd, as I say it,” cried
poor Vennie, with cheeks that were by this time flaming, “but it’s
much, much more serious than it sounds. You see, I know Mr. Clavering
very well. I know how simple and pure-minded he is. And I know how
desperately he prays against being led away--like this. Gladys does
not care for him really a bit. She only does it to amuse herself; to
satisfy her wicked, wicked nature! She would like to lead him as far as
she possibly could, and then to turn upon him and make him thoroughly
miserable. She is the kind of girl--Oh what am I saying to you, Mr.
Taxater?--that men always are attracted by. Some men I believe would
even call her beautiful. I don’t think she’s that at all. I think she
is gross, fleshly, and horrid! But I know what a danger she is to Mr.
Clavering. I know the dreadful struggle that goes on in his mind; and
the horrible temptation she is to him. I know that after seeing her
he always suffers the most cruel remorse. Now, Mr. Taxater, use your
influence to strengthen him against this girl’s treachery. She only
means him harm, I know she does! And if a person like you, whom he
loves and admires so much, talked to him seriously about it, it would
be such a help to him. He is so young. He is a mere boy, and absolutely
ignorant of the world. He does not even realize that the village has
already begun its horrid gossip about them. Do--do, do something, Mr.
Taxater. It is like that young Parsifal, in the play, being tempted by
the enchantress.”
“But how do they meet?” asked the diplomatist, with unchanged gravity.
“I do not see how they are ever alone together.”
“She has arranged it. She is so clever; the bad, bad girl! She goes
to him for confirmation lessons. He teaches her in his study twice a
week--separately from the others.”
“But her father is a Unitarian.”
“That does not interfere. She does what she likes with Mr. Romer. Her
game now is to want to be baptized into our church. She is going to be
baptized first, and then confirmed.”
“And the preparation for baptism is as dangerous as the preparation for
confirmation,” remarked the scholar; straightening the muscles of his
mouth, after the discipline of St. Ignatius.
“The whole thing is horrible--dreadful! It frets me every hour of the
day. He is so good and so innocent. He has no idea where she is leading
him.”
“But I cannot prevent her wanting to be baptized,” said Mr. Taxater.
“You can talk to him,” answered Vennie, with intense conviction. “You
can talk to him and he will listen to you. You can tell him the danger
he is in of being made miserable for life.” She drew her breath deeply.
“Oh the remorse he will feel; the horrible, horrible remorse!”
Mr. Taxater glanced across the hay-field. The sun, a red globe of fire,
was resting on the extreme edge of Leo’s Hill, and seemed like a great
blood-shot eye regarding them with lurid interest. Long cool shadows,
thrown across the field by the elms in the hedge and by the stack
beside them, melted magically into one another, and made the hillocks
of still ungathered grass soft and intangible as fairy graves.
“I will do my best,” said the scholar. “I will do my best.” And
indicating to Vennie, who was absorbed in her nervous gratitude, the
near approach of the object of their saintly conspiracy, he led her
forward to meet the young clergyman with an appropriate air of friendly
and casual nonchalance.
“I am sorry to have to say it,” was Mr. Clavering’s greeting, “but
that farmer-fellow is the only person in my parish for whom I have a
complete detestation. I wish to goodness Mr. Romer had never brought
him into the place!”
“I don’t like the look of his back, I must say,” answered the
theologian, following with his eyes the retreating figure of Mr. John
Goring.
“He is,” said the young priest, “without exception the most repulsive
human being I have ever met in my life. Our worthy Romer is an angel of
light compared with him.”
With Mr. Goring still as their topic, they strolled amicably together
towards the same gap in the hedge, through which the apologist of
the papacy had emerged an hour before. There they separated; Vennie
returning to the vicarage, and the young clergyman carrying off Mr.
Taxater to supper with him in his house by the church.
Clavering’s establishment consisted of a middle-aged woman of
inordinate volubility, and the woman’s daughter, a girl of twelve.
The supper offered by the priest to his guest was “light and
choice”--nor did it lack its mellow accompaniment of carefully
selected, if not “Attic,” wine. Of this wine Mr. Taxater did not
hesitate to partake freely, sitting, when the meal was over, opposite
his host at the open window, through which the pleasant murmurs of
the evening, and the voices of the village-street, soothingly and
harmoniously floated.
The famous theologian was in an excellent temper. Rich recondite jests
pursued one another from his smiling lips, and his white hands folded
themselves complacently above the cross on his watch-chain.
Lottie Fringe, the child of Clavering’s servant, tripped sportively
in and out of the room, encouraged in her girlish coquetries by the
amiable scholar. She was not yet too old to be the kittenish plaything
of the lighter moments of a wise and scholarly man, and it was pleasant
to watch the zest with which the vicar’s visitor entered into her
sportive audacities. Mr. Taxater made her fill and refill his glass,
and taking her playfully on his knee, kissed her and fondled her many
times. It was the vicar himself, who finally, a little embarrassed by
these levities, sent the girl off to the kitchen, apologizing to his
guest for the freedom she displayed.
“Do not apologize, dear Mr. Clavering,” said the theologian. “I love
all children, especially when they are girls. There is something
about the kisses of a young girl--at once amorous and innocent--which
reconciles one to the universe, and keeps death at a distance. Could
one for a moment think of death, when holding a young thing, so full of
life and beauty, on one’s knee?”
The young priest’s face clouded. “To be quite honest with you, Mr.
Taxater,” he murmured, in a troubled voice, “I cannot say that I
altogether agree. We are both unconventional people, so I may speak
freely. I do not think that one does a child any good by encouraging
her to be playful and forward, in that particular way. You live with
your books; but I live with my people, and I have known so many sad
cases of girls being completely ruined by getting a premature taste for
coquetry of that kind.”
“I am afraid, my friend,” answered Mr. Taxater, “that the worst of all
heresies is lodged deep in your heart.”
“Heresies? God knows,” sighed the priest, “I have enough evil in my
heart--but heresies? I am at a loss to catch your meaning.”
In the absence of his playful Clerica--to use the Pantagruelian
allusion--the great Homenas of Nevilton was compelled to fill his
“tall-boy of extravagant wine” with his own hand. He did so, and
continued his explanation.
“By the worst of all heresies I mean the dangerous Puritan idea that
pleasure itself is evil and a thing detestable to God. The Catholic
doctrine, as I understand it, is that all these things are entirely
relative to the persons concerned. Pleasure in itself is, in the
Aristotelian sense, a supreme good. Everyone has a right to it.
Everyone must have it. The whole thing is a matter of proportion and
expediency. If an innocent playful game, of the kind you have just
witnessed, was likely in this definite particular case to lead to harm,
then you would be justified in your anxiety. But there must be no
laying down of hard general rules. There must be no making a virtue of
the mere denying ourselves pleasure.”
Mr. Clavering could hardly wait for his guest to finish.
“Then, according to your theory,” he exclaimed, “it would be right for
you, or whoever you will,--pardon my making the thing so personal--to
indulge in casual levities with any pretty barmaid, as long as you
vaguely surmised that she was a sensible girl and would not be harmed?”
“Certainly it would be right,” replied the papal apologist, sipping his
wine and inhaling the perfume of the garden, “and not only right, but
a plain duty. It is our duty, Mr. Clavering, to make the world happier
while we live in it; and the way to make girls happier, especially when
their occupations are laborious, is to kiss them; to give them innocent
and admiring embraces.”
“I am afraid you are not quite serious, Mr. Taxater,” said the
clergyman. “I have an absurd way of being direct and literal in these
discussions.”
“Certainly, I am serious. Do you not know--young puritan--that some
of the noblest spirits in history have not hesitated to increase
the pleasure of girls’ lives by giving them frequent kisses? In the
Greek days he who could give the most charming kiss was awarded
a public prize. In the Elizabethan days all the great and heroic
souls, whose exquisite wit and passionate imagination put us still to
shame, held large and liberal views on this matter. In the eighteenth
century the courtly and moral Joseph Addison used never to leave a
coffee-house, however humble and poor, without bestowing a friendly
embrace upon every woman in it. The religious Doctor Johnson--a man of
your own faith--was notoriously in the habit of taking his prettier
visitors upon his knee, and tenderly kissing them. It is no doubt
due to this fact, that the great lexicographer was so frequently
visited;--especially by young Quakers. When we come to our own age, it
is well known that the late Archbishop Taraton, the refuter of Darwin,
was never so happy as when romping round the raspberry-canes in his
garden with a crowd of playful girls.
“These great and wise men have all recognized the fact that pleasure is
not an evil but a good. A good, however, that must be used discreetly
and according to the Christian self-control of which God has given his
Church the secret. The senses are not under a curse, Mr. Clavering.
They are not given us simply to tempt and perplex us. They are given
for our wise and moderate enjoyment.”
Francis Taxater once more lifted his glass to his lips.
“To the devil with this Protestant Puritanism of yours! It has darkened
the sun in heaven. It is the cause of all the squalid vice and gross
excesses of our forlorn England. It is the cause of the deplorable
perversities that one sees around one. It is the cause of that odious
hypocrisy that makes us the laughing-stock of the great civilized
nations of France, Italy and Spain.” The theologian drew a deep breath,
and continued. “I notice, Mr. Clavering, that you have by your side,
still unfinished, your second glass of wine. That is a mistake. That is
an insult to Providence. Whatever may be your attitude towards these
butterfly-wenches, it cannot, as a matter of poetic economy, be right
to leave a wine, as delicate, as delicious as this, to spoil in the
glass.
“I suppose it has never occurred to you, Mr. Clavering, to go and sit,
with the more interesting of your flock, at the Seldom Arms? It never
has? So I imagined from my knowledge of your uncivilized English ways.
“The European café, sir, is the universal school of refined and
intellectual pleasure. It was from his seat in a Roman café--a place
not unknown to me myself--that the great Gibbon was accustomed to
survey the summer moon, rising above the Pantheon.
“It is the same in the matter of wine as in the other matter. It is
your hypocritical and puritanical fear of pleasure that leads to the
gross imbibing of villainous spirits and the subterranean slavery of
prostitution. If you allowed yourselves, freely, naturally, and with
Christian moderation, to enjoy the admirable gifts of the supreme
giver, there would no longer be any need for this deplorable plunging
into insane vice. As it is--in this appalling country of yours--one can
understand every form of debauchery.”
At this point Mr. Clavering intervened with an eager and passionate
question. He had been listening intently to his visitor’s words, and
his clear-cut, mobile face had changed its expression more than once
during this long discourse.
“You do not, then, think,” said he, in a tone of something like
supplication, “that there is anything wrong in giving ourselves up to
the intense emotion which the presence of beauty and charm is able to
excite?”
“Wrong?” said Mr. Taxater. “It is wrong to suppress such feelings! It
is all a matter of proportion, my good sir, a matter of proportion and
common sense. A little psychological insight will soon make us aware
whether the emotion you speak of is likely to prove injurious to the
object of our admiration.”
“But oneself--what about oneself?” cried the young priest. “Is there
not a terrible danger, in all these things, lest one’s spiritual ideal
should become blurred and blighted?”
To this question Mr. Taxater returned an answer so formidable and
final, that the conversation was brought to an abrupt close.
“What,” he said, “has God given us the Blessed Sacraments for?”
Hugh Clavering escorted his visitor to the corner of the street and
bade him good-night there. As he re-entered his little garden, he
turned for a moment to look at the slender tower of St. Catharine’s
church, rising calm and still into the hot June sky. Between him and
it, flitted like the ghost of a dead Thaïs or Phryne, the pallid shadow
of an impassioned temptress holding out provocative arms. The form of
the figure seemed woven of all the vapours of unbridled poetic fantasy,
but the heavy yellow hair which most of all hid the tower from his view
was the hair of Gladys Romer.
The apologist of the papacy strolled slowly and meditatively back to
his own house with the easy step of one who was in complete harmony
both with gods and men. Above him the early stars began, one by one, to
shine down upon the earth, but as he glanced up towards them, removing
his hat and passing his hand across his forehead, the great diplomatist
appeared quite untroubled by the ineffable littleness of all earthly
considerations, under the remoteness of those austere watchers.
The barking of dogs, in distant unknown yards, the melancholy cry of
new-shorn lambs, somewhere far across the pastures, the soft, low,
intermittent breathing, full of whispers and odours, of the whole
mysterious night, seemed only to throw Mr. Taxater back more completely
and securely upon that firm ecclesiastical tradition which takes the
hearts of men in its hands and turns them away from the Outer Darkness.
He let himself quietly into the Gables garden, by the little gate in
the wall, and entered his house. He was surprised to find the door
unlocked and a light burning in the kitchen. The careful Mrs. Wotnot
was accustomed to retire to rest at a much earlier hour. He found the
good woman extended at full length upon three hard chairs, her head
supported by a bundle of shawls. She was suffering from one of her
chronic rheumatic attacks, and was in considerable distress.
To a less equable and humane spirit there might have been something
rather irritating than pathetic about this unexpected finale to a
harmonious day. But Mr. Taxater’s face expressed no sign of any feeling
but that of grave and gentle concern.
With some difficulty, for the muscles of her body were twisted by
nervous spasms, the theologian supported the old woman up the stairs,
to her room under the eaves. Here he laid her upon the bed, and for the
rest of the night refused to leave her room, rubbing with his white
plump hands her thin old legs, and applying brandy to her lips at the
moments when the nervous contractions that assailed her seemed most
extreme. The delicate light of dawn showed its soft bluish pallour at
the small casemented window before the old lady fell asleep; but it
was not till relieved by a woman who appeared, several hours later,
with their morning’s milk, that the defender of the Catholic Faith in
Nevilton retired to his well-earned repose.