SAGITTARIUS
The summer of the year whose events, in so far as they affected a
certain little group of Nevilton people we are attempting to describe,
seemed, to all concerned, to pass more and more rapidly, as the days
began again to shorten. July gave place to August, and Mr. Goring’s men
were already at work upon the wheat-harvest. In the hedges appeared all
those peculiar signals of the culmination of the season’s glory, which
are, by one of nature’s most emphatic ironies, the signals also of its
imminent decline.
Old-man’s-beard, for instance, hung its feathery clusters on
every bush; and, in shadier places, white and black briony twined
their decorative leaves and delicate flowers. The blossom of the
blackberry bushes was already giving place to unripe fruit, and the
berries of traveller’s-joy were beginning to turn red. Hips and
haws still remained in that vague colourless state which renders
them indistinguishable to all eyes save those of the birds, but
the juicy clusters of the common night-shade--“green grapes of
Proserpine”--greeted the wanderer with their poisonous Circe-like
attraction, from their thrones of dog-wood and maple, and whispered of
the autumn’s approach. In dry deserted places the scarlet splendour of
poppies was rapidly yielding ground to all those queer herbal plants,
purplish or whitish in hue--the wild hyssop, or marjoram, being the
most noticeable of them--which more than anything else denote the
coming on of the equinox. From dusty heaps of rubbish the aromatic
daisy-like camomile gave forth its pungent fragrance, and in damper
spots the tall purple heads of hemp-agrimony flouted the dying valerian.
An appropriate date at the end of the month had been fixed for the
episcopal visit to Nevilton; and the candidates for confirmation were
already beginning, according to their various natures and temperaments,
to experience that excited anticipation, which, even in the dullest
intelligence, such an event arouses.
The interesting ceremony of Gladys Romer’s baptism had been fixed for
a week earlier than this, a fanciful sentiment in the agitated mind of
Mr. Clavering having led to the selection of this particular day on
the strange ground of its exact coincidence with the anniversary of a
certain famous saint.
The marriage of Gladys with Dangelis, and of Lacrima with John Goring,
was to take place early in September, Mrs. Romer having stipulated for
reasons of domestic economy that the two events should be simultaneous.
Another project of some importance to at least three persons in
Nevilton, was now, as one might say, in the air; though this was by no
means a matter of public knowledge. I refer to Vennie Seldom’s fixed
resolution to be received into the Catholic Church and to become a nun.
Ever since her encounter in the village street with the loquacious
Mr. Wone, Vennie had been oppressed by an invincible distaste for
the things and people that surrounded her. Her longing to give the
world the slip and devote herself completely to the religious life
had been incalculably deepened by her disgust at what she considered
the blasphemous introduction of the Holy Name into the Christian
Candidate’s political canvassing. The arguments of Mr. Taxater and
the conventional anglicanism of her mother, were, compared with this,
only mild incentives to the step she meditated. The whole fabric of
her piety and her taste had been shocked to their foundations by the
unctuous complacency of Mr. Romer’s evangelical rival.
Vennie felt, as she stood aside, in her retired routine, and watched
the political struggle sway to and fro in the village, as though the
champions of both causes were odiously and repulsively in the wrong.
The sly conservatism of the quarry-owner becoming, since the settlement
of the strike, almost fulsome in its flattery of the working classes,
struck her as the most unscrupulous bid for power that she had ever
encountered; and when, combined with his new pose as the ideal employer
and landlord, Mr. Romer introduced the imperial note, and talked
lavishly of the economic benefits of the Empire, Vennie felt as though
all that was beautiful and sacred in her feeling for the country of her
birth, was blighted and poisoned at the root.
But Mr. Wone’s attitude of mind struck her as even more revolting. The
quarry-owner was at least frankly and flagrantly cynical. He made no
attempt--unless Gladys’ confirmation was to be regarded as such--to
conciliate religious sentiment. He never went to church, and in
private conversation he expressed his atheistic opinions with humorous
and careless shamelessness. But Mr. Wone’s intermingling of Protestant
unction with political chicanery struck the passionate soul of the
young girl as something very nearly approaching the “unpardonable sin.”
Her incisive intelligence, fortified of late by conversations with
Mr. Taxater, revolted, too, against the vague ethical verbiage and
loose democratic sentiment with which Mr. Wone garnished his lightest
talk. Since Philip’s release from prison and his reappearance in the
village, she had taken the opportunity of having several interviews
with the Christian Candidate’s son, and these interviews, though they
saddened and perplexed her, increased her respect for the young man in
proportion as they diminished it for his father. With true feminine
instinct Vennie found the anarchist more attractive than the socialist,
and the atheist less repugnant than the missionary.
One afternoon, towards the end of the first week in August, Vennie
persuaded Mr. Taxater to accompany her on a long walk. They made their
way through the wood which separates the fields around Nevilton Mount
from the fields around Leo’s Hill. Issuing from this wood, along the
path followed by every visitor to the hill who wishes to avoid its
steeper slopes, they strolled leisurely between the patches of high
bracken-fern and looked down upon the little church of Athelston.
Athelston was a long, rambling village, encircling the northern end of
the Leonian promontory and offering shelter, in many small cottages all
heavily built of the same material, to those of the workmen in the
quarries who were not domiciled in Nevilton.
“It would be rather nice,” said Vennie to the theologian, “if it
wouldn’t spoil our walk, to go and look at that carving in the porch,
down there. They say it has been cleaned lately, and the figures show
up more clearly.”
The papal champion gravely surveyed the outline of the little cruciform
church, as it shimmered, warm and mellow, in the misty sunshine at
their feet.
“Yes, I know,” he remarked. “I met our friend Andersen there the other
day. He told me he had been doing the work quite alone. He said it was
one of the most interesting things he had ever done. By the way, I am
confident that that rumour we heard, of his getting unsettled in his
mind, is absolutely untrue. I have never found him more sensible--you
know how silent he is as a rule? When I met him he was quite eloquent
on the subject of mediæval carving.”
Vennie looked down and smiled--a sad little smile. “I’m afraid,” she
said; “that his talking so freely is not quite a good sign. But do
let’s go. I have never looked at those queer figures with anyone but my
mother; and you know the way she has of making everything seem as if it
were an ornament on her own mantelpiece.”
They began descending the hill, Mr. Taxater displaying more agility
than might have been expected of him, as they scrambled down between
furze-bushes, rabbit-holes, and beds of yellow trefoil.
“How dreadfully I shall miss you, dear child,” he said. “No one could
accuse me of selfishness in furthering your wish for the religious
life. Half the pleasant discoveries I’ve made in this charming country
have been due to you.”
The young girl turned and regarded him affectionately. “You have been
more than a father to me,” she murmured.
“Ah, Vennie, Vennie!” he protested, “you mustn’t talk like that. After
all, the greatest discovery we have made, is the discovery of your
calling for religion. I have much to be thankful for. It is not often
that I have been permitted such a privilege. If we had not been thrown
together, who knows but that the influence of our good Clavering----”
Vennie blushed scarlet at the mention of the priest’s name, and to hide
her confusion, buried her head in a great clump of rag-wort, pressing
its yellow clusters vehemently against her cheeks, with agitated
trembling hands.
When she lifted up her face, the fair hair under her hat was sprinkled
with dewy moisture. “The turn of the year has come,” she said. “There’s
mist on everything today.” She smiled, with a quick embarrassed glance
at her companion.
“The turn of the year has come,” repeated the champion of the papacy.
They descended the slope of yet another field, and then paused again,
leaning upon a gate.
“Have you ever thought how strange it is,” remarked the girl, as they
turned to survey the scene around them, “that those two hills should
still, in a way, represent the struggle between good and evil? I always
wish that my ancestors had built a chapel on Nevilton Mount instead of
that silly little tower.”
The theologian fixed his eyes on the two eminences which, from the
point where they stood, showed so emphatically against the smouldering
August sky.
“Why do you call Leo’s Hill evil?” he asked.
Vennie frowned. “I always have felt like that about it,” she answered.
“It’s an odd fancy I’ve got. I can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s
because I know something of the hard life of the quarry-men. Perhaps
it’s because of Mr. Romer. I really can’t tell you. But that’s the
feeling I have!”
“Our worthy Mr. Wone would thank you, if you lent him your idea for use
in his speeches,” remarked the theologian with a chuckle.
“That’s just it!” cried Vennie. “It teases me, more than I can say,
that the cause of the poor should be in his hands. I can’t associate
_him_ with anything good or sacred. His being the one to oppose Mr.
Romer makes me feel as though God had left us completely, left us at
the mercy of the false prophets!”
“Child, child!” expostulated Mr. Taxater--“_Custodit Dominus animas
sanctorum suorum; de manu peccatoris liberabit eos_.”
“But it is so strange,” continued Vennie. “It is one of the things I
cannot understand. Why should God have to use other means than those
His church offers to defeat the designs of wicked people? I wish
miracles happened more often! Sometimes I dream of them happening.
I dreamt the other night that an angel, with a great silver sword,
stood on the top of Nevilton Mount, and cried aloud to all the dead in
the churchyard. Why can’t God send real angels to fight His battles,
instead of using wolves in sheep’s clothing like that wretched Mr.
Wone?”
The champion of the papacy smiled. “You are too hard on our poor
Candidate, Vennie. There’s more of the sheep than the wolf about our
worthy Wone, after all. But you touch upon a large question, my dear;
a large question. That great circle, whose centre is everywhere and
its circumference nowhere, as St. Thomas says, must needs include many
ways to the fulfilment of His ends, which are mysterious to us. God is
sometimes pleased to use the machinations of the most evil men, even
their sensual passions, and their abominable vices, to bring about the
fulfilment of His will. And we, dear child,” he added after a pause,
“must follow God’s methods. That is why the church has always condemned
as a dangerous heresy that Tolstoyan doctrine of submission to evil.
We must never submit to evil! Our duty is to use against it every
weapon the world offers. Weapons that in themselves are unholy, become
holy--nay! even sacred--when used in the cause of God and His church.”
Vennie remained puzzled and silent. She felt a vague, remote
dissatisfaction with her friend’s argument; but she found it difficult
to answer. She glanced sadly up at the cone-shaped mount above them,
and wished that in place of that heathen-looking tower, she could see
her angel with the silver sword.
“It is all very confusing,” she murmured at last, “and I shall be glad
when I am out of it.”
The theologian laid his hand--the hand that ought to have belonged to a
prince of the church--upon his companion’s.
“You will be out of it soon, child,” he said, “and then you will help
us by your prayers. We who are the temporal monks of the great struggle
are bound to soil our hands in the dust of the arena. But your prayers,
and the prayers of many like you, cleanse them continually from such
unhappy stains.”
Even at the moment he was uttering these profound words, Mr. Taxater
was wondering in his heart how far his friend’s inclination to a
convent depended upon an impulse much more natural and feminine than
the desire to avoid the Mr. Romers and Mr. Wones of this poor world. He
made a second rather brutal experiment.
“We must renounce,” he said, “all these plausible poetic attempts to be
wiser than God’s Holy Church. That is one of the faults into which our
worthy Clavering falls.”
Once more the tell-tale scarlet rushed into the cheeks of Nevilton’s
little nun.
“Yes,” she answered, stooping to pluck a spray of wild basil, “I know.”
They opened the gate, and very soon found themselves at the entrance
to Athelston church. Late summer flowers, planted in rows on each
side of the path, met them with a ravishing fragrance. Stocks and
sweet-williams grew freely among the graves; and tall standard roses
held up the wealth of their second blossoming, like chalices full of
red and white wine. Heavy-winged brown butterflies fluttered over the
grass, like the earth-drawn spirits, Vennie thought, of such among
the dead as were loath to leave the scene of their earthly pleasures.
Mounted upon a step-ladder in the porch was the figure of James
Andersen, absorbed in removing the moss and lichen from the carving in
the central arch.
He came down at once when he perceived their approach. “Look!” he said,
with a wave of his hand, “you can see what it is now.”
Obedient to his words they both gazed curiously at the quaint early
Norman relief. It represented a centaur, with a drawn bow and arrow,
aiming at a retreating lion, which was sneaking off in humorously
depicted terror.
“That is King Stephen,” said the stone-carver, pointing to the
centaur. “And the beast he is aiming at is Queen Maud. Stephen’s
zodiacal sign was Sagittarius, and the woman’s was Leo. Hence the arrow
he is aiming.”
Vennie’s mind, reverting to her fanciful distinction between the
two eminences, and woman-like, associating everything she saw with
the persons of her own drama, at once began to discern, between the
retreating animal and the fair-haired daughter of the owner of Leo’s
Hill, a queer and grotesque resemblance.
She heaved a deep sigh. What would she not give to see her poor
priest-centaur aim such an arrow of triumph at the heart of his
insidious temptress!
“I think you have made them stand out wonderfully clear,” she said
gently. “Hasn’t he, Mr. Taxater?”
The stone-carver threw down the instrument he was using, and folded
his arms. His dark, foreign-looking countenance wore a very curious
expression.
“I wanted to finish this job,” he remarked, in a slow deep voice,
“before I turn into stone myself.”
“Come, come, my friend,” said Mr. Taxater, while Vennie stared in
speechless alarm at the carver’s face. “You mustn’t talk like that! You
people get a wrong perspective in things. Remember, this is no longer
the Stone Age. The power of stone was broken once for all, when certain
women of Palestine found that stone, which we’ve all heard of, lifted
out of its place! Since then it is to wood--the wood out of which His
cross was made--not to stone, that we must look.”
The carver raised his long arm and pointed in the direction of Leo’s
Hill. “Twenty years,” he said, “have I been working on this stone. I
used to despise such work. Then I grew to care for it. Then there came
a change. I loved the work! It was the only thing I loved. I loved to
feel the stone under my hands, and to watch it yielding to my tools.
I think the soul of it must have passed into my soul. It seemed to
know me; to respond to me. We became like lovers, the stone and I!” He
laughed an uneasy, disconcerting laugh; and went on.
“But that is not all. Another change came. _She_ came into my life. I
needn’t tell you, Miss Seldom, who I mean. You know well enough. These
things cannot be hidden. Nothing can be hidden that happens here! She
came and was kind to me. She is kind to me still. But they have got
hold of her. She can’t resist them. Why she can’t, I cannot say; but
it seems impossible. She talks to me like a person in a dream. They’re
going to marry her to that brute Goring. You’ve heard that I suppose?
But of course it’s nothing to you! Why should it be?”
He paused, and Vennie interrupted him sharply. “It is a great deal
to us, Mr. Andersen! Every cruel thing that is done in a place
affects everyone who lives in the place. If Mr. Taxater and--and
Mr. Clavering--thought that Miss Traffio was being driven into
this marriage, I’m sure they would not allow it! They would do
something--everything--to stop such an outrage. Wouldn’t you, Mr.
Taxater?”
“But surely, Vennie,” said the theologian, “you have heard something
of this? You can’t be quite so oblivious, as all that, to the village
scandal?”
He spoke with a certain annoyance as people are apt to do, when some
disagreeable abuse, which they have sought to forget, is brought
vividly before them.
Vennie, too, became irritable. The question of Lacrima’s marriage had
more than once given her conscience a sharp stab. “I think it is a
shame to us all,” she cried vehemently, “that this should be allowed.
It is only lately that I’ve heard rumours of it, and I took them for
mere gossip. It’s been on my mind.” She looked almost sternly at the
theologian. “I meant to talk to you about it. But other things came
between. I haven’t seen Lacrima for several weeks. Surely, if it is
as Mr. Andersen says, something ought to be done! It is a horrible,
perfectly horrible idea!” She covered her face with her hands as if to
shut out some unbearable vision.
James Andersen watched them both intently, leaning against the
wood-work of the church-door.
“I thought you all knew of this,” he said presently. “Perhaps you did;
but the devil prompted you to say nothing. There are a great many
things in this world which are done while people--good people--look
on--and nothing said. Do you wonder now that the end of this business
will be a curious one; I mean for me? For you know, of course, what
is going to happen? You know why I have been chosen to work at this
particular piece of carving? And why, ever since I quarrelled with Luke
and drank in Hullaway Inn, I have heard voices in my head? The reason
of that is, that Leo’s Hill is angry because I have deserted it. Every
stone I touch is angry, and keeps talking to me and upbraiding me. The
voices I hear are the voices of all the stones I have ever worked with
in my life. But they needn’t fret themselves. The end will surprise
even them. _They_ do not know,”--here his voice took a lower tone, and
he assumed that ghastly air of imparting a piece of surprising, but
quite natural, information, which is one of the most sinister tokens
of monomania,--“that I shall very soon be, even as they are! Isn’t it
funny they don’t know that, Miss Seldom? Isn’t it a curious thing, Mr.
Taxater? I thought of that, just now, as I chipped the dirt from King
Stephen. Even _he_ didn’t know, the foolish centaur! And yet he has
been up there, seeing this sort of thing done, for seven hundred years!
I expect he has seen so many girls dragged under this arch, with sick
terror in their hearts, that he has grown callous to it. A callous
king! A knavish-smiling king! It makes me laugh to think how little he
cares!”
The unfortunate man did indeed proceed to laugh; but the sound of it
was so ghastly, even to himself, that he quickly became grave.
“Luke will be here soon,” he said. “Luke has always come for me, these
last few days, when his work is over. It’ll be over soon now, I think.
He may be here any moment; so I’d better finish the job. Don’t you
worry about Lacrima, ladies and gentlemen! She’ll fly away with the
rooks. This centaur-king will never reach _her_ with his arrows. It’ll
be me, not her, he’ll turn into stone!”
He became silent and continued his labour upon the carving. The wonder
was that with his head full of such mad fancies he could manage so
delicate a piece of work. Mr. Taxater and Vennie watched him in
amazement.
“I think,” whispered the latter presently, “we’d better wait in the
churchyard till his brother comes. I don’t like leaving him in this
state.”
Mr. Taxater nodded, and retreating to the further end of the path, they
sat down together upon a flat tombstone.
“I am sorry,” said Mr. Taxater, after a minute or two’s silence,
“that I spoke rather crossly to you just now. The truth is, the man’s
reference to that Italian girl made me feel ashamed of myself. I
have not your excuse of being ignorant of what was going on. I have,
in fact, been meaning to talk to you about it for some weeks; but I
hesitated, wishing to be quite sure of my ground first.
“Even now, you must remember, we have no certain authority to go upon.
But I’m afraid--I’m very much afraid--what Andersen says is true. It is
evidently his own certain knowledge of it that has upset his brain.
And I’m inclined to take his word for it. I fear the girl must have
told him herself; and it was the shock of hearing it from her that had
this effect.
“There’s no doubt he’s seriously ill. But if I know anything of these
things, it’s rather a case of extreme nervous agitation than actual
insanity. In any event, it’s a relief to remember that this kind of
mania is, of all forms of brain-trouble, the easiest cured.”
Vennie made an imperious little gesture. “We _must_ cure him!” she
cried. “We must! We must! And the only way to do it, as far as I can
see, is to stop this abominable marriage. Lacrima can’t be doing it
willingly. No girl would marry a man like that, of her own accord.”
Mr. Taxater shook his head. “I’m afraid there are few people,” he
remarked, “that some girl or other wouldn’t marry if the motive were
strong enough! The question is, What is the motive in this instance?”
“What can Mr. Quincunx be thinking of?” said Vennie. “He hasn’t been up
to see mother lately. In fact, I don’t think he has been in our house
since he began working in Yeoborough. That’s another abominable shame!
It seems to me more and more clear that there’s an evil destiny hanging
over this place, driving people on to do wicked things!”
“I’m afraid we shall get small assistance from Mr. Quincunx,” said the
theologian. “The relations between him and Lacrima are altogether
beyond my power of unravelling. But I cannot imagine his taking any
sort of initiative in any kind of difficulty.”
“Then what are we to do?” pleaded Vennie, looking anxiously into the
diplomatist’s face.
Mr. Taxater rested his chin upon the handle of his cane and made no
reply.
At this moment the gate clicked behind them, and Luke Andersen
appeared. He glanced hastily towards the porch; but his brother was
absorbed in his work and apparently had heard nothing. Stepping softly
along the edge of the path he approached the two friends. He looked
very anxious and troubled.
Raising his hat to Vennie, he made a gesture with his hand in his
brother’s direction. “Have you seen him?” he enquired. “Has he talked
to you?”
The theologian nodded.
“Oh, I think all this is dreadful!” whispered Vennie. “I’m more
distressed than I can tell you. I’m afraid he’s very, very ill. And he
keeps talking about Miss Traffio. Surely something can be done, Mr.
Andersen, to stop that marriage before it’s too late?”
Luke turned upon her with an expression completely different from any
she had ever seen him wear before. He seemed to have suddenly grown
much older. His mouth was drawn, and a little open; and his cheeks were
pale and indented by deep lines.
“I would give my soul,” he said with intense emphasis, “to have this
thing otherwise. I have already been to Lacrima--to Miss Traffio, I
mean--but she will do nothing. She is mad, too, I think. I hoped to get
her to marry my brother, off-hand, anyhow; and leave the place with
him. But she won’t hear of it. I can’t understand her! It almost seems
as if she _wanted_ to marry that clown. But she can’t really; it’s
impossible. I’m afraid that fool Quincunx is at the bottom of it.”
“Something must be done! Something must be done!” wailed Vennie.
“_Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus!_” muttered Mr. Taxater. “_Speravit
anima mea in Domino._”
“I shouldn’t mind so much the state he’s in,” continued Luke, “if I
didn’t remember how my mother went. She got just like this before she
died. It’s true my father was a brute to her. But this different kind
of blow seems to have just the same effect upon James. Fool that I
am, I must needs start a miserable quarrel with him when he was most
worried. If anything happens, I tell you I shall feel I’m responsible
for the whole thing, and no one else!”
All this while Mr. Taxater had remained silent, his chin on the handle
of his cane. At last he lifted up his head.
“I think,” he began softly, “I should rather like a word alone with Mr.
Luke, Vennie. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind wandering down the lane a step
or two? Then I can follow you; and we’ll leave this young man to get
his brother home.”
The girl rose obediently and pressed the youth’s hand. “If anyone can
help you,” she said with a look of tender sympathy, “it is Mr. Taxater.
He has helped me in my trouble.”
As soon as Vennie was out of hearing the theologian looked straight
into Luke’s face.
“I have an idea,” he said, “that if any two people can find a way out
of this wretched business, it is you and I together.”
“Well, sir,” said Luke, seating himself by Mr. Taxater’s side and
glancing apprehensively towards the church-porch; “I have tried what I
can do with Miss Romer, but she maintains that nothing she can say will
make any difference to Miss Traffio.”
“I fancy there is one thing, however, that would make a difference to
Mr. Quincunx,” remarked the theologian significantly. “I am taking for
granted,” he added, “that it is this particular marriage which weighs
so heavily on your brother. He would not suffer if he saw her wedded to
a man she loved?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Luke, “your idea is to appeal to Quincunx. I’ve thought
of that, too. But I’m afraid it’s hopeless. He’s such an inconceivably
helpless person. Besides, he’s got no money.”
“Suppose we secured him the money?” said Mr. Taxater.
Luke’s countenance momentarily brightened; but the cloud soon settled
on it again.
“We couldn’t get enough,” he said with a sigh. “Unless,” he added, with
a glimmer of humour, “you or some other noble person have more cash to
dispose of than I fancy is at all likely! To persuade Quincunx into any
bold activity we should have to guarantee him a comfortable annuity for
the rest of his life, and an assurance of his absolute security from
Romer’s vengeance. It would have to be enough for Lacrima, too, you
understand!”
The theologian shook the dew-drops from a large crimson rose which hung
within his reach.
“What precise sum would you suggest,” he asked, “as likely to be a
sufficient inducement?”
The stone-carver meditated. “Those two could live quite happily,” he
remarked at last, “on two hundred a year.”
“It is a large amount to raise,” said Mr. Taxater. “I fear it is quite
beyond my power and the power of the Seldoms, even if we combined our
efforts. How right Napoleon was, when he said that in any campaign, the
first, second, and third requisite was money!
“It only shows how foolish those critics of the Catholic Church are,
who blame her for laying stress upon the temporal side of our great
struggle against evil. In this world, as things go, one always strikes
sooner or later against the barrier of money. The money-question lies
at the bottom of every subterranean abuse and every hidden iniquity
that we unmask. It’s a wretched thing that it should be so, but we
have to accept it; until one of Vennie’s angels”--he added in an
undertone--“descends to help us! Your poor brother began talking just
now about the power of stone. I referred him to the Cross of our
Lord--which is made of another material!
“But unfortunately in the stress of this actual struggle, you and I,
my dear Andersen, find ourselves, as you see, compelled to call in the
help, not of wood, but of gold. Gold, and gold alone, can furnish us
with the means of undermining these evil powers!”
The texture of Mr. Taxater’s mind was so nicely inter-threaded with the
opposite strands of metaphysical and Machiavellian wisdom, that this
discourse, fantastic as it may sound to us, fell from him as naturally
as rain from a heavy cloud. Luke Andersen’s face settled into an
expression of hopeless gloom.
“The thing is beyond us, then,” he said. “I certainly can’t provide an
enormous sum like that. James’ and my savings together only amount to a
few hundreds. And if no quixotic person can be discovered to help us,
we are bound hand and foot.
“Oh I should like,” he cried, “to make this place ring and ting with
our triumph over that damned Romer!”
“_Quis est iste Rex gloriæ?_” muttered the Theologian. “_Dominus fortis
et potens; Dominus potens in prœlio._”
“I shall never dare,” went on the stone-carver, “to get my brother
away into a home. The least thought of such a thing would drive him
absolutely out of his mind. He’ll have to be left to drift about like
this, talking madly to everyone he meets, till something terrible
happens to him. God! I could howl with rage, to think how it all might
be saved if only that ass Quincunx had a little gall!”
Mr. Taxater tapped the young man’s wrist with his white fingers. “I
think we can put gall into him between us,” he said. “I think so,
Andersen.”
“You’ve got some idea, sir!” cried Luke, looking at the theologian.
“For Heaven’s sake, let’s have it! I am completely at the end of my
tether.”
“This American who is engaged to Gladys is immensely rich, isn’t he?”
enquired Mr. Taxater.
“Rich?” answered Luke. “That’s not the word for it! The fellow could
buy the whole of Leo’s Hill and not know the difference.”
Mr. Taxater was silent, fingering the gold cross upon his watch-chain.
“It remains with yourself then,” he remarked at last.
“What!” cried the astonished Luke.
“I happen to be aware,” continued the diplomatist, calmly, “that there
is a certain fact which our friend from Ohio would give half his
fortune to know. He certainly would very willingly sign the little
document for it, that would put Mr. Quincunx and Miss Traffio into a
position of complete security. It is only a question of ‘the terrain of
negotiation,’ as we say in our ecclesiastical circles.”
Luke Andersen’s eyes opened very widely, and the amazement of his
surprise made him look more like an astounded faun than ever--a faun
that has come bolt upon some incredible triumph of civilization.
“I will be quite plain with you, young man,” said the theologian.
“It has come to my knowledge that you and Gladys Romer are more than
friends; have been more than friends, for a good while past.
“Do not wave your hand in that way! I am not speaking without evidence.
I happen to know as a positive fact that this girl is neither more nor
less than your mistress. I am also inclined to believe--though of this,
of course, I cannot be sure--that, as a result of this intrigue, she
is likely, before the autumn is over, to find herself in a position of
considerable embarrassment. It is no doubt, with a view to covering
such embarrassment--you understand what I mean, Mr. Andersen?--that she
is making preparations to have her marriage performed earlier than was
at first intended.”
“God!” cried the astounded youth, losing all self-possession, “how,
under the sun, did you get to know this?”
Mr. Taxater smiled. “We poor controversialists,” he said, “have to
learn, in self-defence, certain innocent arts of observation. I
don’t think that you and your mistress,” he added, “have been so
extraordinarily discreet, that it needed a miracle to discover your
secret.”
Luke Andersen recovered his equanimity with a vigorous effort. “Well?”
he said, rising from his seat and looking anxiously at his brother,
“what then?”
As he uttered these words the young stone-carver’s mind wrestled in
grim austerity with the ghastly hint thrown out by his companion. He
divined with an icy shock of horror the astounding proposal that this
amazing champion of the Faith was about to unfold. He mentally laid
hold of this proposal as a man might lay hold upon a red-hot bar of
iron. The interior fibres of his being hardened themselves to grasp
without shrinking its appalling treachery.
Luke had it in him, below his urbane exterior, to rend and tear away
every natural, every human scruple. He had it in him to be able
to envisage, with a shamelessness worthy of some lost soul of the
Florentine’s Inferno, the fire-scorched walls of such a stark dilemma.
The palpable suggestion which now hung, as it were, suspended in the
air between them, was a suggestion he was ready to grasp by the throat.
The sight of his brother’s gaunt figure, every line of which he knew
and loved so well, turned his conscience to adamant. Sinking into the
depths of his soul, as a diver might sink into an ice-cold sea, he felt
that there was literally _nothing_ he would not do, if his dear Daddy
James could be restored to sanity and happiness.
Gladys? He would walk over the bodies of a hundred Gladyses, if that
way, and that alone, led to his brother’s restoration!
“What then?” he repeated, turning a bleak but resolute face upon Mr.
Taxater.
The theologian continued: “Why, it remains for you, or for someone
deputed by you, to reveal to our unsuspecting American exactly how his
betrothed has betrayed him. I have no doubt that in the disturbance
this will cause him we shall have no difficulty in securing his aid in
this other matter. It would be a natural, an inevitable revenge for him
to take. Himself a victim of these Romers, what more appropriate, what
more suitable, than that he should help us in liberating their other
victims? If he is as wealthy as you say, it would be a mere bagatelle
for him to set our good Quincunx upon his feet forever, and Lacrima
with him! It is the kind of thing it would naturally occur to him to
do. It would be a revenge; but a noble revenge. He would leave Nevilton
then, feeling that he had left his mark; that he had made himself felt.
Americans like to make themselves felt.”
Luke’s countenance, in spite of his interior acquiescence, stiffened
into a haggard mask of dismay.
“But this is beyond anything one has ever heard of!” he protested,
trying in vain to assume an air of levity. “It is beyond everything.
Actually to convey, to the very man one’s girl is going to marry, the
news of her seduction! Actually to ‘coin her for drachmas,’ as it says
somewhere! It’s a monstrous thing, an incredible thing!”
“Not a bit more monstrous than your original sin in seducing the girl,”
said Mr. Taxater.
“That is the usual trick,” he went on sternly, “of you English people!
You snatch at your little pleasures, without any scruple, and feel
yourselves quite honourable. And then, directly it becomes a question
of paying for them, by any form of public confession, you become
fastidiously scrupulous.”
“But to give one’s girl away, to betray her in this shameless manner
oneself! It seems to me the ultimate limit of scurvy meanness!”
“It only seems to you so, because the illusion of chivalry enters into
it; in other words, because public opinion would condemn you! This
honourable shielding of the woman we have sinned with, at every kind
of cost to others, has been the cause of endless misery. Do you think
you are preparing a happy marriage for your Gladys in your ‘honourable’
reticence? By saving her from this union with Mr. Dangelis--whom,
by the way, she surely cannot love, if she loves you--you will be
doing her the best service possible. Even if she refuses to make
you her husband in his place--and I suppose her infatuation would
stop at that!--there are other ways, besides marriage, of hiding her
embarrassed condition. Let her travel for a year till her trouble is
well over!”
Luke Andersen reflected in silence, his drooping figure indicating a
striking collapse of his normal urbanity.
At last he spoke. “There may be something in what you suggest,” he
remarked slowly. “Obviously, _I_ can’t be the one,” he added, after a
further pause, “to strike this astounding bargain with the American.”
“I don’t see why not,” said the theologian, with a certain
maliciousness in his tone, “I don’t see why not. You have been the one
to commit the sin; you ought naturally to be the one to perform the
penance.”
The luckless youth distorted his countenance into such a wry grimace,
that he caused it to resemble the stone gargoyles which protruded their
lewd tongues from the church roof above them.
“It’s a scurvy thing to do, all the same,” he muttered.
“It is only relatively--‘scurvy,’ as you call it,” replied Mr. Taxater.
“In an absolute sense, the ‘scurviness’ would be to let your Gladys
deceive an honest man and make herself unhappy for life, simply to
save you two from any sort of exposure. But as a matter of fact, I am
_not_ inclined to place this very delicate piece of negotiation in your
hands. It would be so fatally easy for you--under the circumstances--to
make some precipitate blunder that would spoil it all.
“Don’t think,” he went on, observing the face of his interlocutor
relapsing into sudden cheerfulness, “that I let you off this penance
because of its unchivalrous character. You break the laws of chivalry
quite as completely by putting me into the possession of the facts.
“I shall, of course,” he added, “require from you some kind of written
statement. The thing must be put upon an unimpeachable ground.”
Luke Andersen’s relief was not materially modified by this demand. He
began to fumble in his pocket for his cigarette-case.
“The great point to be certain of,” continued Mr. Taxater, “is that
Quincunx and Lacrima will accept the situation, when it is thus
presented to them. But I don’t think we need anticipate any difficulty.
In case of Dangelis’ saying anything to Mr. Romer, though I do not for
a moment imagine he will, it would be well if you and your brother were
prepared to move, if need were, to some other scene of action. There is
plenty of demand for skilled workmen like yourselves, and you have no
ties here.”
The young man made a deprecatory movement with his hands.
“We neither of us should like that, very much, sir. James and I are
fonder of Nevilton than you might imagine.”
“Well, well,” responded the theologian, “we can discuss that another
time. Such a thing may not be necessary. I am glad to see, my friend,”
he added, “that whatever wrong you have done, you are willing to atone
for it. So I trust our little plan will work out successfully. Perhaps
you will look in, tomorrow night? I shall be at leisure then, and
we can make our arrangements. Well, Heaven protect you, ‘_a sagitta
volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris_.’”
He crossed himself devoutly as he spoke, and giving the young man a
friendly wave of the hand, and an encouraging smile, let himself out
through the gate and proceeded to follow the patient Vennie.
He overtook his little friend somewhere not far from the lodge of
that admirable captain, whose neatly-cut laurel hedge had witnessed,
according to the loquacious Mrs. Fringe, the strange encounter between
Jimmy Pringle and his Maker. Vennie was straying slowly along by the
hedge-side, trailing her hand through the tall dead grasses. Hearing
Mr. Taxater’s footsteps, she turned eagerly to meet him.
“Well,” she asked, “what does Luke say about his brother? Is it as bad
as we feared?”
“He doesn’t think,” responded the theologian, “any more than I do, that
the thing has gone further than common hallucination.”
“And Lacrima--poor little Lacrima!--have you decided what we must do to
intervene in her case?”
“I think it may be said,” responded the scholar gravely, “that we
have hit upon an effective way of stopping that marriage. But perhaps
it would be pleasanter and easier for you to remain at present in
ignorance of our precise plan. I know,” he added, smiling, “you do not
care for hidden conspiracies.”
Vennie frowned. “I don’t see why,” she said, “there should be anything
hidden about it! It seems to me, the thing is so abominable, that one
would only have to make it public, to put an end to it completely.
“I hope”--she clasped her hands--“I do hope, you are not fighting the
evil one with the weapons of the evil one? If you are, I am sure it
will end unhappily. I am sure and certain of it!”
She spoke with a fervour that seemed almost prophetic; and as she
did so, she unconsciously waved--with a pathetic little gesture of
protest--the bunch of dead grasses which she held in her hand.
Mr. Taxater walked gravely by her side; his profile, in its
imperturbable immobility, resembling the mask of some great mediæval
ecclesiastic. The only reply he made to her appeal was to quote the
famous Psalmodic invocation: “_Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in
vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam._”
It would have been clear to anyone who had overheard his recent
conversation with Luke, and now watched his reception of Vennie’s
instinctive protest, that whatever the actions of this remarkable man
were, they rested upon a massive foundation of unshakable philosophy.
There was little further conversation between them; and at the
vicarage gate, they separated with a certain air of estrangement. With
undeviating feminine clairvoyance, Vennie was persuaded in the depths
of her mind that whatever plan had been hit upon by the combined wits
of the theologian and Luke, it was one whose nature, had she known
it, would have aroused her most vehement condemnation. Nor in this
persuasion will the reader of our curious narrative regard her as far
astray from the truth.
Meanwhile the two brothers were also returning slowly along the
road to Nevilton. Had Mr. Clavering, whose opinion of the younger
stone-carver was probably lower than that of any of his other critics,
seen Luke during this time, he might have formed a kindlier judgment
of him. Nothing could have exceeded the tact and solicitude with which
he guided the conversation into safe channels. Nothing could have
surpassed, in affectionate tenderness, the quick, anxious glances he
every now and then cast upon his brother. There are certain human
expressions which flit suddenly across the faces of men and women,
which reveal, with the seal of absolute authenticity, the depth of
the emotion they betray. Such a flitting expression, of a love almost
maternal in its passionate depth, crossed the face of Luke Andersen at
more than one stage of their homeward walk.
James seemed, on the whole, rather better than earlier in the day. The
most ominous thing he did was to begin a long incoherent discourse
about the rooks which kept circling over their heads on their way to
the tall trees of Wild Pine. But this particular event of the rooks’
return to their Nevilton roosting-place was a phase of the local
life of that spot calculated to impress even perfectly sane minds
with romantic suggestion. It was always a sign of the breaking up of
the year’s pristine bloom when they came, a token of the not distant
approach of the shorter equinoctial days. They flew hither, these
funereal wayfarers, from far distant feeding-grounds. They did not
nest in the Nevilton woods. Nevilton was to them simply a habitation
of sleep. Many of them never even saw it, except in its morning
and evening twilight. The place drew them to it at night-fall, and
rejected them at sunrise. In the interval they remained passive and
unconscious--huddled groups of black obscure shapes, tossed to and
fro in their high branches, their glossy heads full of dreams beyond
the reach of the profoundest sage. Before settling down to rest,
however, it was their custom, even on the stormiest evenings, to
sweep round, above the roofs of the village, in wide airy circles of
restless flight, uttering their harsh familiar cries. Sailing quietly
on a peaceful air or roughly buffeted by rainy gusts of wind--those
westerly winds that are so wild and intermittent in this corner of
England--these black tribes of the twilight give a character to their
places of favourite resort which resembles nothing else in the world.
The cawing of rooks is like the crying of sea-gulls. It is a sound
that more than anything flings the minds of men back to “old unhappy
far-off things.”
The troubled soul of the luckless stone-carver went tossing forth on
this particular night of embalmed stillness, driven in the track of
those calmly circling birds, on the gust of a thought-tempest more
formidable than any that the fall of the leaves could bring. But the
devoted passion of the younger brother followed patiently every flight
it took; and by the time they had reached the vicarage-gate, and turned
down the station-hill towards their lodging, the wild thoughts had
fallen into rest, and like the birds in the dusk of their sheltering
branches, were soothed into blessed forgetfulness.
Luke had recourse, before they reached their dwelling, to the magic of
old memories; and the end of that unforgettable day was spent by the
two brothers in summoning up childish recollections, and in evoking the
images and associations of their earliest compacts of friendship.
When he left his brother asleep and stood for a while at the open
window, Luke prayed a vague heathen prayer to the planetary spaces
above his head. A falling star happened to sweep downward at that
moment behind the dark pyramid of Nevilton Mount, and this natural
phenomenon seemed to his excited nerves a sort of elemental answer to
his invocation; as if it had been the very bolt of Sagittarius, the
Archer, aimed at all the demons that darkened his brother’s soul!