(i)
Quentillian’s next and final summons to St. Gwenllian came some months
after Canon Morchard had taken Flora to her Sisterhood, and returned
alone.
Owen was unprepared for the change in the Canon’s appearance, although
he knew him to be ill.
“Aye, dear lad! It’s the last stage of the journey. I have thought that
it was so for some time, and they tell me now that there is no doubt
of it. This poor clay is worn out, and the spirit within is to be set
free. Verily, I can still repeat those favourite words of mine: ‘All
things work together for good, to those that love God.’ If you but knew
the number of times during these last few years that I have cried out
within myself ‘O for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be
at rest!’ And now it has come! and I hope to keep my Christmas feast
among the blest. They tell me that it cannot be long.”
Quentillian looked the enquiry that he felt it difficult to put into
words.
“I can take very little. Soon, they tell me that even that little will
have become impossible. See how even the crowning mercy of preparedness
is vouchsafed to me! I have put my house in order as well as may be,
and have no care save for my poor Lucilla. She will be alone indeed,
and it is for her sake, Owen, that I want you to do a great kindness to
a dying man.”
“Anything, sir. Do you want me to stay?”
“You have it, Owen.” The Canon laid his hand, thin now to emaciation,
upon Quentillian’s.
“Stay with us now until the end comes. It cannot be far off. I have
outlived my brothers, and Lucilla’s remaining aunt is old and infirm.
It is not fit, even were it possible, that she should come here. She
will receive Lucilla most tenderly after I am gone--of that I am
assured. But there is no one to uphold her, to spare her needless
distress, when the time comes.”
“I will do everything that I can to help her.”
“I know it, dear fellow--I know it. Thank you from the bottom of my
heart. It seems natural to treat you as a son.”
The Canon paused and looked wistfully at Quentillian upon the word.
“Perhaps Adrian will come home. I have written to him--a long letter.
He need not be afraid of me.
“I have written to my three absent children: To Valeria--my blessing
for her little sons--I would have given much to see them before
going--aye, and their mother, too, my merry Valeria, as I once called
her! I have missed Valeria’s laughter in this quiet house, that was
once full of merriment and children’s voices.
“And I have written to Flora, my Flora, who chose the better part. May
she indeed be blessed in her choice--little Flora!”
He sank back, looking exhausted.
“I will stay as long as you wish me to stay, and I will do all that I
can for Lucilla,” repeated Quentillian.
“I know it. The last anxiety has been allayed. Aye, Owen, I have ceased
to concern myself with these things now, I hope. If Adrian comes to me,
and if Lucilla can count upon you as upon a brother, then I am well
satisfied indeed. My affairs are in good order, I believe. My will is
with my solicitors--Lucilla knows the address. What there is, goes in
equal shares to Lucilla, Valeria, and Adrian. Flora has received her
portion already. My books, dear Owen, are yours. All else--personal
effects, manuscripts, and the rest--are Lucilla’s. She has been my
right hand. There are mementos to Clover, to one or two old friends and
servants--nothing else. I have thought it well to make Lucilla sole
executrix--she has helped in all my business for so long!
“So you see that my temporal concerns are over and done with. In regard
to the spiritual, I have had the unutterable honour and pleasure of
a visit from the Bishop himself. He was all fatherly goodness and
kindness. The dear Clover is always at hand for reading, and I can
depend on him utterly for those last commendations that are to smooth
my way down the Valley of the Shadow. There is nothing wanting. And now
you have come!”
The Canon’s wasted face was both radiant and serene.
The grief that had so often shown there seemed to have passed away, and
Quentillian found it almost incredible that he had ever seen the Canon
angry, or weighed down by a leaden depression of spirits.
“Is he really happy, all the time?” Quentillian asked Lucilla.
“Yes, all the time. Even when he has pain. But they say there won’t be
any more pain, most likely, now. He will just sink, gradually. If you
knew how very little he is living on, even now, you would be surprised.”
“Are you doing the nursing?”
“He wants a trained nurse. One has been sent for. He thinks that it
will spare me,” said Lucilla, smiling a little.
In the days that followed, Owen saw how difficult Lucilla found it to
be so spared.
The nurse was an efficient and conscientious woman, and the Canon
quickly became dependent upon her. He begged Owen to spend as much time
as possible with Lucilla, who remained downstairs, replying to the
innumerable letters and the enquirers who came to the house.
She was now only with her father for a brief morning visit, and the
hour in the afternoon when the nurse took her exercise out of doors.
Very often Quentillian, at the Canon’s request, was also with them then.
“Lucilla and I have long ago said our last words, such as they are,”
the Canon told him with a smile. “We understand one another too well to
need to be left alone together.”
Time slipped by with monotonous regularity, the changes in the Canon
almost imperceptible to the onlookers.
Then, preceded only by a telegram, Adrian came home.
“My father isn’t really dying, is he?” he asked piteously.
“He can’t take anything at all, now. It’s a question almost of hours.”
Lucilla took him upstairs to where his father lay, propped upon
pillows, and they were left alone together.
“You know, it is very bad for Canon Morchard to have any agitation,”
the nurse anxiously pointed out to Lucilla, when the interview had
lasted a long while.
“Can it make any real difference?”
“It may reduce his strength more quickly.”
“He would say that it was worth it. He has not seen this son for a long
while.”
Lucilla kept the woman out of the room as long as it was possible to do
so.
At last Adrian came downstairs.
That evening the Canon said to Quentillian, with tears in his eyes:
“Adrian has promised me to give up his work for that man. Is it not
wonderful, dear Owen? All, all added unto me. If this pain of mine
is to be the price of my boy’s awaking to his own better nature, how
gladly shall I not pay it!”
It was the only time that Quentillian had ever heard him allude to
having suffered physical pain.
“I have not been so much at rest about Adrian since he was a little
boy,” said the Canon. “He was always the most affectionate of them all.
And he cried like a little child, poor fellow, this afternoon, and
voluntarily passed me his promise to leave that man.”
Quentillian’s own involuntary distrust of the promise given by a weak
nature, under strong emotional stress, was profound, but he gave no
sign of it. It no longer caused him any satisfaction to be aware of a
deeper insight in himself than in the Canon. He could not share that
guileless singleness of vision, and felt no envy of it, and yet he
paradoxically desired that it should remain unimpaired.
He asked Lucilla if she knew of Adrian’s promise.
“He told me. He was crying when he came down. He can’t believe even yet
that father is dying, poor Adrian! And yet he must believe it, really,
to have made that promise.”
“The Canon is so thankful for it.”
“I know. He wanted it more than anything in the world. Everything has
come to make it easy for him to go, Owen.”
Something in her tone made him say gently:
“Poor Lucilla!”
“Even if the impression is only temporary with Adrian, it will be a
comfort to him afterwards. He is very unhappy now, that there should
have been any estrangement between them.”
It was evident enough that Lucilla, also, had no great reliance upon
Adrian’s stability of purpose, although his present reaction had
brought such joy and comfort to the dying man.
That night for the first time the Canon’s mind wandered. He spoke of
his children as though all were once more of nursery age, and at home
together.
“Little Adrian can take my hand, and then he can keep up with the
others. Less noise, my love--a little less noise.... Valeria’s voice
is too often raised, too often raised--although I like its merry note,
in fit and proper season. My merry Valeria! Now are we ready? The
sketch-book, Flora, the sketch-book.... I want to see that pretty
attempt at the Church finished.”
Then he said with an apologetic note in his voice:
“Flora lacks perseverance, and is too easily discouraged, but we hope
that she may show great feeling for art, by and bye. Lucilla’s _forte_
lies in more practical directions. She is my housekeeper--my right
hand, I often call her. Look, children, at that effect of sunlight
through the beech-leaves. Is it not wonderful? Come, Adrian, my man--no
lagging behind....”
Presently a puzzled, distressed look came over his face and he asked:
“Is not one missing? Is David here?”
Lucilla bent over him to say, “Yes, father,” but the distressed look
still lingered.
“Where is David?” said the Canon. “Was there not some sadness--some
trouble between us? No--no--all a dream.”
His face lightened again. “David is safe home. I shall see David
tonight.”
By and by he asked to be told the time.
It was nine o’clock.
The Canon’s voice had become a weak whisper.
“I thought it was morning, and that I had them all again--little
children. Such trustful little hands lying in mine ... and the children
have grown up and gone away.... No ... Lucilla, you are there, are you
not, my dear love? And Owen--Owen, that was like a third son to me. My
own sons are there, too--David is safe home ... only a very little way
on ... and Adrian, little Adrian--he promised ... ah, all things work
together for good....”
His voice trailed thinly away into silence, his wan face was smiling.
“He will sleep,” whispered the nurse, and her words were verified
almost instantly.
Owen took Lucilla away.
There was a strong sense upon him that the summons would not be long
delayed now.
Lucilla went downstairs and quietly opened the outer door into the
garden. They walked up and down there, Owen watching the red spark
waxing and waning from his own cigar. The night was extraordinarily
still, the dark arch of the sky powdered with stars.
Neither spoke directly of that which occupied their minds most, but
Quentillian said by and bye:
“Where shall you go, eventually?”
“Torquay, perhaps. There is an old aunt there--father’s sister. I shall
have just enough not to be dependent upon her, even if I make my home
with her.”
“Will that be congenial?”
Lucilla gave a little low, sad laugh.
“I don’t think there’s much alternative, is there? This house, of
course, goes to the next incumbent. If Mr. Clover is appointed--and we
very much hope that he will be--he would probably buy a good deal of
the furniture (which is just as well, as it would certainly drop to
pieces if we tried to move it). I couldn’t possibly afford to set up
house for myself, in any case. And I must have something to do. Aunt
Mary would find plenty for me to do.”
“I daresay,” said Quentillian without enthusiasm.
“Perhaps you are thinking of my taking up an occupation or a profession
seriously, but you know, Owen, it isn’t really a practical proposition,
though one feels as though it ought to be. Just think for a minute, and
tell me what I’m fit for--except perhaps being someone’s housekeeper.”
“My dear Lucilla, with your education and the literary training your
father has given you, surely anyone would be glad of your services.”
“Not at all. I can’t write shorthand. My typing, which I taught myself,
isn’t nearly as good or as quick as that of any little girl of sixteen
who has learnt it properly, and can probably use half a dozen different
makes of machine. I’ve never learnt office routine--filing, indexing,
bookkeeping, the use of a dictaphone. I believe all those things are
necessary nowadays. I don’t suppose, if I did learn them all now, I
should ever be very good or very quick.”
“I’m not suggesting that you should become a City clerk at forty
shillings a week.”
“A private secretary, then? I can’t honestly see why anyone should
employ a woman with no experience, when there are so many experts
wanting work. Languages might be an asset, but most people know French.
German isn’t likely to be wanted now, and I don’t fancy there is any
great demand for Latin or Greek. Even for teaching, schools want
diplomas and certificates, besides proficiency in games.”
“But the higher professions are all open to women of education
nowadays,” he protested. “You’re not restricted to the kitchen or the
nursery.”
“Do you really think that I could work up, now, for a stiff legal or
medical examination, and pass it?” she demanded with a sort of gentle
irony. “You don’t realize, Owen, that I’m nearly forty.”
He had not realized it, and it silenced him momentarily.
“I think my chances went by a long time ago,” said Lucilla. “I’ve never
told anyone about it, but I think I’d like to tell you now, because I
don’t want you to think of me as a victim.”
Quentillian registered a silent mental appreciation of a reason
diametrically opposite to the reason for which the majority of
confidences are bestowed.
“Before Val and Flossie grew up, it was obvious that I should stay at
home and look after the house. Besides, I liked doing it. My father
was--and is--the whole world to me. But there was a time, just once,
when Val grew up, and David had gone away, when I wanted to go away,
too. Of course I’m talking of a good many years ago, and there weren’t
so many openings to choose from. But I wanted very much to go to
college. Father could just have managed it, without being unfair to any
of the others.”
“You told him, then?”
“Oh, yes; I told him.”
“Would he not consent?” inquired Owen, as she paused.
“He promised to consent if I still wished it, after thinking it over.”
“But he persuaded you not to wish it any more?”
“No, it wasn’t that. It’s a little bit difficult to explain. He did ask
me what I should gain by it, and whether it wasn’t just restlessness
and seeking a vocation to which I was not called. You remember hearing
him say that about Val, too?”
“I remember.”
“Well, that was all. He didn’t say anything more. Of course I knew he
wouldn’t like my going away from him, without being told. But it was
I who decided that it was an occasion for making what I’m afraid I
thought of as a sacrifice.”
She surprised him by a little laugh.
“You see, Owen, I think _now_ that I was quite wrong.”
“Quite wrong,” he echoed gravely.
“It was an odd, muddled sort of time for some years after that. I
suppose I was resenting my own decision, and yet trying to buoy myself
up all the time by thinking of my own self-abnegation and generosity.
It had seemed rather a beautiful thing to do at the time--to sacrifice
my own life to my widowed father and my motherless brothers and
sisters. At first, I remember thinking that there would be something
almost sacred about my everyday life at home.”
“When people begin to think that things are sacred to them, it
generally means that they’re afraid of facing the truth about them.”
“Exactly. It was a long time before I told myself the truth. But in
the end I did, when I saw that no one was likely to want to marry me,
and that my life was going to be exactly what I had decided to let it
be. And of course from the minute I faced it fair and square--after
the first--it all became a great deal easier. Besides, there were
compensations, really.”
He made a sound of interrogation.
“Well, it’s really a great thing to have a home. I’ve always felt
sorry for women who lived in their boxes, and had nowhere of their
own. And being mistress of the house all these years--I’ve liked that,
and been fairly interested in it. And I’ve got imagination enough to
see that books, and music, and a garden, to anyone brought up as we
were especially, are quite important items. You know, women who have a
career don’t generally get those other things thrown in as well, unless
they’re exceptionally fortunate.”
“You set them against independence and your own freedom?”
“I don’t say that, but they _do_ count,” she said steadily. “If it
comes to a question of relative values, of course they take second
place. But once I’d admitted to myself, quite honestly, that I’d
relinquished my chance of the best things of all, then I could quite
see those other things as being intrinsically worth something--a very
good second best. They’re really only unsatisfactory when one tries
to think of them as substitutes. Taken at their own value--well, I’ve
found them helpful, you know.”
There was a silence before she spoke again.
“Most of all, there was Father.”
“That relationship has been the biggest factor in your life, of course.”
“Yes.” She paused, and then in a tone resolutely matter-of-fact, said:
“I think perhaps I won’t talk about that now. But I know just as well
as you do that in the course of nature, those particular links can only
be expected to endure for a certain number of years. They’re breaking
now, for me, and it means that part of my life goes too.”
He could not contradict her.
“Is Adrian any use?”
“Poor Adrian! He says now that he and I must keep together, and make a
home for one another. He wants to comfort me, and he knows Father would
be glad; but you can see for yourself that it wouldn’t be fair to take
him at his word. Perhaps we may be together for a little while--till
things have worn off a little bit, for him. Adrian is emotional, isn’t
he? I don’t know what he’ll do, eventually.”
The recollection of Adrian’s promise to the Canon, that he would
relinquish his work, was evidently not a factor that Lucilla took into
serious consideration. By tacit agreement neither of them alluded to it.
“Valeria will hardly be able to come home, I suppose?”
“Oh, no. It’s out of the question. She couldn’t leave the two babies,
nor very well bring them with her.”
“Flora?”
Already, Owen realized with faint surprise, he had come to remember
Flora’s corporeal existence only by an effort. He could scarcely feel
her to be less separated from the realities of life than one who had
died in youth, and been long forgotten.
Lucilla only shook her head.
“They are all gone. Whatever anyone may say, Owen, they didn’t shirk
their chances. They said Yes to Life as they saw it.”
“Can you be glad of that?”
“Very glad. Even selfishly, I can be glad. Think of
three--unfulfilled--lives to be spent side by side, held together by
affection if you like, but fundamentally built on an artificial basis!
No, no”--her smile held humour, rather than conscious valour, though
Owen saw it as valiant too--“I’m glad to have faced my facts at last,
though it ought to have been done long ago, when I made my choice. I’m
not optimistic now, but I--I’m free.”
As they turned, at the end of the garden path, a dark figure sped
across the grass towards them. Adrian’s voice reached them, low and
urgent:
“Come!”
(ii)
The Canon lay back against his pillows and it did not need the nurse’s
gesture to Lucilla to tell them that he was dying. His breath came loud
and fast and his eyes were closed.
Adrian had flung himself on his knees at the bedside and was sobbing,
his face hidden in his arms. Quentillian stood beside Lucilla, who held
her father’s hand in hers.
“Is he conscious?” Lucilla asked.
The nurse shook her head.
“Can anything be done to make it easier?” Lucilla said then.
“No, my dear. I’ve sent messages for the doctor and Mr. Clover, but----”
Her face completed the sentence.
They remained motionless, Adrian’s irregular sobs and the Canon’s
heavy breathing alone cutting intermittently across the silence.
Quentillian never knew how long it was before Canon Morchard opened his
eyes and spoke, articulating with great difficulty.
“All safe--all happy ... verily, _all_ things work together for good!”
He smiled, looking straight across at Owen Quentillian, and suddenly
said with great distinctness:
“_Mors janua vitæ!_”
Owen could hear the cry still, ringing through the room, in the time of
dumb struggle that followed.
It seemed a fitting epitome of the spirit that had been Fenwick
Morchard’s.
Just before the first hint of day dawned into the room, Lucilla and
the nurse laid back on to the pillows the form that they had been
supporting.
Adrian was crying and shivering like a child.
“Take him downstairs and give him something hot to drink,” the nurse
commanded Owen. “There’s a fire in the kitchen.”
Quentillian looked at Lucilla.
“Please go,” she said.
He went downstairs with Adrian.
“If only I’d been better to him! He was awfully good to me, really,”
sobbed Adrian. “He used to make an awful fuss of me when I was a little
chap, and I wasn’t half grateful enough--beast that I was!”
“Drink this.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Try and be a man, Adrian, for your sister’s sake.”
“It’s worse for me than for any of them,” said Adrian ingenuously,
“because I’ve got things to be remorseful about, and they haven’t. And
now it’s too late!”
“You were here in time,” said Quentillian, abominably conscious, and
resentful, of his own triteness.
“And I promised him I’d chuck my job. I think it comforted him.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“It was a sacrifice, in a way, to throw the whole thing up, when I was
doing well and keen on it, and all that sort of thing; but I’m thankful
now that I did it. Perhaps it made up to--_him_--for my having been
such a hound, often and often.”
It was oddly evident that Adrian was torn between genuine grief and
shock and a latent desire to make the most of his own former depravity.
“I daresay you’re thinking that having been through the war and
everything, I ought to be used to the sight of death,” he said
presently; “but it’s quite different when it’s like this. One got sort
of hardened there, and everybody was running the same risk--oneself
included. But my father--why, it seems like the end of everything,
Owen. I must say, I think I’m a bit young to have my home broken up
like this, don’t you?”
“Very young,” repeated Quentillian automatically, and yet not
altogether without significance.
“I don’t know what will happen, but of course Lucilla and I have to
leave St. Gwenllian. It’s hard on her, too. I thought we ought to keep
together, you know, for a bit. It seems more natural. I shall have
to look for a fresh job, and I don’t know what Hale will say to my
chucking him.”
Adrian was silent, obviously uneasy, and it was evident enough that
it was the strong revulsion from that anxiety which prompted his next
sudden outburst.
“I’m so awfully thankful that I had the strength to make that promise
about leaving Hale. It’ll always be a comfort to me to feel that I
made a sacrifice for the dear old man, and that he--went--the happier
for it. Mind you, I don’t agree with him about Hale and Hale’s crowd.
Father had the old-fashioned ideas of his generation, you know, and of
course all progress seemed a sort of vandalism to him. I daresay if
he’d ever met Hale he’d have had his eyes opened a bit, and seen things
quite differently. Hale was always jolly decent about him, too--he’d
read some of his stuff, and had quite a sort of admiration for it, in a
way. Said it was reactionary, and all that, but perfectly sound in its
own way, you know--scholarly, and all that kind of muck.”
“Have you written to Hale?”
“No. Of course, in a way it’s an awfully awkward situation for me,
having to tell him why I’m not coming back to him, and so on. I thought
I’d pop up and see him as soon as it could be managed. Of course there
are arrangements to be made----”
The boy broke off, in a fresh access of bewilderment and grief.
“I simply can’t realize he’s gone, Owen. I say--you do think he was
happy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That promise of mine meant a lot to him. I’m so thankful that I’ve
got that to remember. You might say, in a way, considering how much
he always thought of us, that some of his children had rather let him
down, in a way. I mean, Lucilla and I were the only two there, out of
the five of us. Of course, David, poor chap, had gone already, and
Val and Flossie couldn’t very well help themselves--and yet there it
was! Do you suppose that when he said--_that_--about ‘all safe, all
happy’--he was thinking of us?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s a comfort to know his mind was at rest. He wouldn’t have said
that if I hadn’t made that promise, you know,” said Adrian.
“Look here, Adrian, hadn’t you better try and get some sleep? There’ll
be things to be done, later, you know, and you and I--if you’ll let me
help--must try and take some of it off Lucilla’s hands.”
All the child in Adrian responded to the transparent lure.
He drew himself up.
“Thanks awfully, Owen. I shall be only too glad of your help. There’ll
be a good deal for me to see to, of course, so perhaps I’d better lie
down for an hour or two while I can. What about Lucilla?”
“Would you like to come and find her?”
The boy shuddered violently.
“Not in there--I couldn’t,” he said piteously.
They went upstairs together.
As they passed the door of the Canon’s room, it was cautiously opened
and the nurse came outside and spoke to Adrian.
“The doctor should be here presently. I want him to see Miss Morchard.
She turned faint a little while ago, and I’ve got her into her room,
but I’m afraid she’s in for a breakdown. I’ve seen them like this
before, after a long strain, you know.”
The woman’s tone was professionally matter-of-fact.
“Had I better go to her?” said Adrian, troubled, and seeming rather
resentful at the fresh anxiety thrust upon him.
“I shouldn’t, if I were you. It’ll only upset her. She’s broken down a
bit--hysterical. It’ll relieve her, in the end. I shan’t leave her now,
till the doctor comes.”
Lucilla hysterical!
Owen, almost more amazed than concerned, watched the nurse depart to
what she evidently looked upon as a fresh case.
“Well, I can’t do anything, I suppose,” said Adrian miserably.
“Go to bed,” Quentillian repeated. “Shall I draft out some telegrams
for you, and let you see them before they go? It’s no use sending them
to the post-office before eight.”
“Don’t you want to sleep yourself?”
“Not just now, thanks.”
“Well, I’ll relieve you at seven. Send someone to call me, will
you?--though I don’t suppose I shall sleep.”
The boy trailed into his room, disconsolate and frightened-looking.
Owen Quentillian, searching for writing materials, found them on the
table in the Canon’s study, a table scrupulous in its orderliness, each
stack of papers docketed, each article laid with symmetrical precision
in its own place.
Owen would not sit there, where only the Canon had sat, under the
crucifix mounted on the green velvet plaque. He went instead to
another, smaller table, in the embrasure of a window, and sat there
writing until the morning light streamed in upon him.
Then he laid down the pen, with a sense of the futility of activities
that sought to cheat reflection, and let his mind dwell upon that which
subconsciously obsessed it.
Canon Morchard had died as he had lived--an optimist. An invincible
faith in the ultimate rightness of all things had been his to the end,
and perhaps most of all at the end.
Quentillian envisaged the Canon’s causes of thankfulness.
He had seen his children as “safe” and “happy.” Was it only because he
had wanted so to see them?
David, who was dead, had been mourned for, but the Canon had been
spared the deepest bitterness of separation. He had known nothing of
the gulf widening between his own soul and that of his eldest son....
A fool’s paradise?
He had seen Lucilla as safe and happy.
And yet Lucilla’s life was over, unlived. As she herself had said, her
chances had gone by. Torquay remained. It was not very difficult to
imagine her days there. An old lady--the placid kindness accorded by
the aged to the middle-ageing--the outside interests of a little music,
a few books, a flower-garden--the pathetic, vicarious planning for
scarcely-seen nephews and nieces--the quick, solitary walks, cut short
by the fear of being missed, and then, as years went on, more solitude,
and again more solitude.
Lucilla had said: “I’m not an optimist now--but I’m free.”
From the bottom of his heart Owen recalled with thankfulness the fact
of Lucilla’s freed spirit.
It was the best that life would ever hold for her now.
His thoughts turned to Flora.
Quentillian could not envisage her life: eternally secluded, eternally
withdrawn. She was lost to them, as they were lost to her.
Subconsciously, he was aware of associations connected with Flora’s
vocation upon which he preferred not to dwell. He knew, dimly,
intuitively, that Lucilla’s merciless clarity of outlook had seen
Flora less as a voluntary sacrifice than as the self-deluded victim of
fanaticism.
But no doubts had crossed the Canon’s mind on Flora’s behalf. He had
known no distrust of her craving for self-immolation, no dread of
reaction coming too late.
He had thanked God for the dedication of Flora.
The one of his children for whom he had grieved perhaps longest was
Valeria. And it was on Valeria that Owen’s thoughts dwelt most gladly.
She had purchased reality for herself, and although the price might
include his own temporary discomfiture, Quentillian rejoiced in it
candidly. Nevertheless, it was Val’s error, and not Val’s achievement,
that her father had seen. His hope for her had been the one of ultimate
reparation implied in his own favourite words--“All things work
together for good.”
And the Canon had quoted those words yet again, when Adrian, his
favourite child, had come back to him. His deepest thankfulness had
been for the emotional, unstable promise volunteered by Adrian’s
impulsive youth.
Quentillian could see no reliance to be placed upon that promise to
which the Canon, with such ardent gratitude and joy, had trusted.
Adrian would drift, the type that does little harm, if less good.
Strength of intellect, as of character, had been denied him. No
interest would hold him long, no aim seem to him to be worth sustained
effort.
And yet the Canon had felt Adrian, too--perhaps most of all Adrian, in
the flush of reconciliation after their estrangement--to be “safe” and
“happy.”
Then optimism was merely a veil, drawn across the nakedness of Truth?
From the depths of a profound and ingrained pessimism, Quentillian
sought to view the question dispassionately, and felt himself
fundamentally unable to do so.
Hard facts and--at best--resignation, or baseless hopes and undaunted
courage, such as had been Canon Morchard’s?
The death of the Canon, bereft of all and yet believing himself to
possess all, had epitomized his life.
Overhead, sounds and stirrings had begun, and Quentillian softly let
himself out of the house and stepped out into the fresh chill of the
morning air. His eyelids were stiff and aching from his vigil, and
sudden, most unwonted tears filled them. He glanced at the windows of
the old house. A light still burned in Lucilla’s, as though the nurse
had been able to spare no thought from her ministrations.
Lucilla, the finest and bravest of the Canon’s children, had been
broken on the wheel.
In the passionless sorrow that possessed him, Quentillian grasped at
the strand of consolation that he knew to exist somewhere. It had been
found for him once before, by Canon Morchard.
He found it again, remembering.
_Mors janua vitæ._
The Canon had proclaimed it, as a joyful certainty. Approached far
otherwise, Owen could yet proclaim it, too, as the supreme and ultimate
Fact to be faced, of which the true realization would strike forever
the balance between optimism and pessimism.
He turned towards the entrance again, and as he did so the blinds of
Canon Morchard’s room were drawn down, by a careful, unseen hand.
V