‘OH, BREAK, MY HEART!--POOR BANKRUPT, BREAK AT ONCE.’
CYRIL CULVERHOUSE had entered upon a career of unceasing toil. He had
given himself scanty rest or respite at Little Yafford, though it was a
place where most curates would have taken life easily; but at Bridford
he learned, for the first time, what work means in an overcrowded,
sorely neglected manufacturing town. The ignorances and abuses which he
found rampant in those noisome back slums and overcrowded alleys, lying
hidden behind the outward respectability of the high street, aroused
his indignation against a system that allowed such things to be. He was
no democrat; he had no sympathy with would-be levellers; but it seemed
to him that there must be something out of joint in the time, when such
depths of social degradation were left to their native gloom, while the
gaslit thoroughfare and the shriek of the railway engine testified to
the march of improvement.
Soon after the arrival of Cyril Culverhouse at Bridford, the
respectable inhabitants were startled by a series of letters in their
leading newspaper, letters characterized by that noble eloquence
which comes straight from a heart moved to indignation by the wrongs
and sufferings of others. No man could feel his own griefs so keenly
as this anonymous writer felt the miseries of his fellow townsmen.
With an unflinching hand he tore aside the curtain from those dens
of infamy and ignorance which the citizens of Bridford were willing
to ignore, or to speak of with a deprecating shrug, and an admission
that Bridford was a very bad place. It had never occurred to anybody
that it was his business to make the place better. No modern Peter the
Hermit had arisen to call for a crusade against ignorance and vice.
The Bridfordians were too hotly bent upon money-making to have time
to spare for crusades of any kind. Those letters in the _Bridford
Journal_ did some good, and roused some citizens who had been as deeply
slumberous as to the condition of their fellow-men as if they had
been the pampered lackeys of the Sleeping Beauty, wasting a century in
one after-dinner snooze, with a vaguely pleasant sense of repletion,
afternoon sun, the lullaby of summer woods, and the drowsy hum of
insects.
But it was not with his pen alone that Cyril worked. Wherever the
state of things was worst he was oftenest to be found. That tall erect
figure of his grew to be as familiar in the alleys and back slums of
Bridford as the hawker with his stale and damaged wares, or the drunken
factory hand reeling home after dark. Wherever he went he did good. He,
whose voice had been grave and gentle at Little Yafford, here spoke in
tones of thunder. He was fearless in reprobation of brutish cruelty
and besotted self-indulgence. He was tender and compassionate as a
woman to the weak and oppressed, the women and children. First he made
himself feared, and then he made himself loved. Even the men--the burly
hardened sinners--to whom he spoke home-truths unflinchingly,--even
these ended by liking him.
‘I loike ’im ’cos he ain’t afeared on us,’ said one of these strayed
lambs; ‘he’ll coom into my place and call me, like a pickpocket, and
yet he knaws for half a farthin’ I’d oop wi’ one o’ my clogs and brain
’im. He ain’t afeared, bless you. He puts me in moind o’ th’ lion tamer
wot cum along o’ th’ show.’
The parish church at Bridford was only just big enough for a highly
respectable congregation, people who had ‘top hats’ and best bonnets,
and who came to church regularly every Sunday because it was the right
thing to do, and dissected their neighbours’ characters afterwards
on their way home. Here Cyril felt the rough denizens of the slums
and alleys were not wanted. There was no room for them. They would
have been put to shame by the best bonnets and the sleek broadcloth.
He did at first try to get them to go to church on a Sunday evening.
He organized week-day evening services, and instruction classes. But
even from these the factory people hung back. The old parish church,
with its shining oaken pews and brass chandeliers, was too grand for
them. Then Cyril took round the hat among the wealthy manufacturing
families, some of whom had been roused by those stirring letters in
the newspapers, and collected funds for a mission chapel. He began
in a very humble way, by fitting up a large room that had once been
a coffee-house, but had languished for want of appreciation, the
community leaning to stronger liquor than tea or coffee. Here he had
services and instruction classes four times a week, thinly attended at
first; but by-and-bye the room came to be filled to overflowing, and
Cyril began to think of building a chapel.
He had got thus far, working night and day, shutting out of his mind
as much as possible all thoughts of himself, and the hopes that he
had cherished and renounced, when he received a letter from his
cousin Kenrick, which gave him more pain than anything that had ever
happened to him; except Christian Harefield’s death, and the train of
circumstances attending upon it.
‘_Culverhouse Castle, April 30th._
DEAR CYRIL,--I should not like a stranger to tell you of the most
important event in my life, before you had heard of it from me.
I sail for India the day after to-morrow, but I go only for a
year. One little year hence I shall sell out, and come back to
England to settle down in my old home. I renounce all hope of
military distinction. Whatever ambition I may have will take a new
line. I am going to be married, Cyril. The woman, who is, to my
mind, loveliest and most perfect among women, has promised to be my
wife. A year hence, all going well, Beatrix Harefield and I are to
be married, and I shall bring to the old house the fairest mistress
that ever reigned over it.
Is this to make any breach between you and me, Cyril? God forbid.
You have retired from the race. You must not be angry with me for
going in to win. I write lightly enough, but I feel deeply. I
would not willingly have come between you and your chosen love;
but when you fell out of the running, of your own choice, and
deliberately renounced your chance, I held myself free to woo and
win Miss Harefield, if I could. She was not easily won, but every
day of our acquaintance made me more intensely in earnest, and I
think a man could hardly desire to win so strongly as I did, and
not end by winning. She is all goodness, sweetness, and nobility;
and she loves this place already almost as dearly as I do. Indeed,
sometimes I think it is Culverhouse that has won her, and not I.
But I am content, deeply content.
I am going away for a year. That is part of our compact. By that
time her mourning will be over. She will throw off her black robes
and shine out as a bride. All the people round about have made up
their minds from the beginning that she is to be Lady Culverhouse.
The village children, the toothless crones, bob to her with that
intent.
Am I not a man to be envied, Cyril? In our boyish days, when good
Mrs. Dulcimer used to say to me, “Kenrick, you must marry an
heiress,” I always answered No; for in those days I thought that
marrying an heiress must mean marrying for money; but now the money
comes to me joined with love so deep and true that fortune is but a
feather-weight in the scale. Were my sweet one penniless I would as
gladly marry her, and let Culverhouse Castle go to the dogs. This
is no idle boast, Cyril. I mean it, and feel it at the bottom of my
heart.
And now, dear boy, be generous as you have ever been to a comrade
who owns himself in all things your inferior. Write me one little
line to tell me that this new happiness of mine shall make no
barrier between you and me, that you are not angry with me for
loving and winning the woman you might have won, but did not. Tell
me this much, Cyril, and fill my cup of joy to overflowing, before
I see the Wight fade into a blue speck upon the distant horizon.
Your faithful friend and cousin,
KENRICK CULVERHOUSE.’
Cyril sat for an hour with this letter crushed in his hand, motionless
as if he had been turned into stone. She was lost to him for ever. Of
his own deliberate act he had renounced her and let her go,--but the
fact that he had lost her utterly had never come home to him till now.
And innocent or guilty he must love her to the last beat of his heart.
He was very sure of that now.