Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;
Truth is the speech of inward purity.
_The Light of Asia_.
In my first stage the reader will perceive that I was a comparatively
weak and harmless little slander, with merely that taint of original sin
which was to be expected in one of such parentage. But I developed with
great rapidity; and I believe men of science will tell you that this is
always the case with low organisms. That, for instance, while it takes
years to develop the man from the baby, and months to develop the dog
from the puppy, the baby monad will grow to maturity in an hour.
Personally I should have preferred to linger in Mrs. O'Reilly's pleasant
drawing-room, for, as I said before, my victim interested me, and I
wanted to observe him more closely and hear what he talked about. But I
received orders to attend evensong at the parish church, and to haunt the
mind of Lena Houghton.
As we passed down the High Street the bells rang out loud and clear, and
they made me feel the same slight sense of discomfort that I had felt
when I looked at Zaluski; however, I went on, and soon entered the
church. It was a fine old Gothic building, and the afternoon sunshine
seemed to flood the whole place; even the white stones in the aisle were
glorified here and there with gorgeous patches of colour from the stained
glass windows. But the strange stillness and quiet oppressed me, I did
not feel nearly so much at home as in Mrs. O'Reilly's drawing-room--to
use a terrestrial simile, I felt like a fish out of water.
For some time, too, I could find no entrance at all into the mind of Lena
Houghton. Try as I would, I could not distract her attention or gain the
slightest hold upon her, and I really believe I should have been
altogether baffled, had not the rector unconsciously come to my aid.
All through the prayers and psalms I had fought a desperate fight without
gaining a single inch. Then the rector walked over to the lectern, and
the moment he opened his mouth I knew that my time had come, and that
there was a very fair chance of victory before me. Whether this
clergyman had a toothache, or a headache, or a heavy load on his mind, I
cannot say, but his reading was more lugubrious than the wind in an
equinoctial gale. I have since observed that he was only a degree worse
than many other clerical readers, and that a strange and delightfully
mistaken notion seems prevalent that the Bible must be read in a dreary
and unnatural tone of voice, or with a sort of mournful monotony; it is
intended as a sort of reverence, but I suspect that it often plays into
the hands of my progenitor, as it most assuredly did in the present
instance.
Hardly had the rector announced, "Here beginneth the forty-fourth verse
of the sixteenth chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel," than a sort
of relaxation took place in the mind I was attacking. Lena Houghton's
attention could only have been given to the drearily read lesson by a
very great effort; she was a little lazy and did not make the effort, she
thought how nice it was to sit down again, and then the melancholy voice
lulled her into a vague interval of thoughtless inactivity. I promptly
seized my opportunity, and in a moment her whole mind was full of me. She
was an excitable, impressionable sort of girl, and when once I had
obtained an entrance into her mind I found it the easiest thing in the
world to dominate her thoughts. Though she stood, and sat, and knelt,
and curtseyed, and articulated words, her thoughts were entirely absorbed
in me. I crowded out the Magnificat with a picture of Zaluski and
Gertrude Morley. I led her through more terrible future possibilities in
the second lesson than would be required for a three-volume novel. I
entirely eclipsed the collects with reflections on unhappy marriages;
took her off _via_ Russia and Nihilism in the State prayers, and by the
time we arrived at St. Chrysostom had become so powerful that I had
worked her mind into exactly the condition I desired.
The congregation rose. Lena Houghton, still dominated by me, knelt
longer than the rest, but at last she got up and walked down the aisle,
and I felt a great sense of relief and satisfaction. We were out in the
open air once more, and I had triumphed; I was quite sure that she would
tell the first person she met, for, as I have said before, she was
entirely taken up with me, and to have kept me to herself would have
required far more strength and unselfishness than she at that moment
possessed. She walked slowly through the churchyard, feeling much
pleased to see that the curate had just left the vestry door, and that in
a few moments their paths must converge.
Mr. Blackthorne had only been ordained three or four years, and was a
little younger, and much less experienced in the ways of the world, than
Sigismund Zaluski. He was a good well-meaning fellow, a little narrow, a
little prejudiced, a little spoiled by the devotion of the district
visitors and Sunday School teachers; but he was honest and energetic, and
as a worker among the poor few could have equalled him. He seemed to
fancy, however, that with the poor his work ended, and he was not always
so wise as he might have been in Muddleton society.
"Good afternoon, Miss Houghton," he exclaimed. "Do you happen to know if
your brother is at home? I want just to speak to him about the choir
treat."
"Oh, he is sure to be in by this time," said Lena.
And they walked home together.
"I am so glad to have this chance of speaking to you," she began rather
nervously. "I wanted particularly to ask your advice."
Mr. Blackthorne, being human and young, was not unnaturally flattered by
this remark. True, he was becoming well accustomed to this sort of
thing, since the ladies of Muddleton were far more fond of seeking advice
from the young and good-looking curate than from the elderly and
experienced rector. They said it was because Mr. Blackthorne was so much
more sympathetic, and understood the difficulties of the day so much
better; but I think they unconsciously deceived themselves, for the
rector was one of a thousand, and the curate, though he had in him the
makings of a fine man, was as yet altogether crude and young.
"Was it about anything in your district?" he asked, devoutly hoping that
she was not going to propound some difficult question about the origin of
evil, or any other obscure subject. For though he liked the honour of
being consulted, he did not always like the trouble it involved, and he
remembered with a shudder that Miss Houghton had once asked him his
opinion about the 'Ethical Concept of the Good.'
"It was only that I was so troubled about something Mrs. O'Reilly has
just told me," said Lena Houghton. "You won't tell any one that I told
you?"
"On no account," said the curate, warmly.
"Well, you know Mr. Zaluski, and how the Morleys have taken him up?"
"Every one has taken him up," said the curate, with the least little
touch of resentment in his tone. "I knew that the Morleys were his
special friends; I imagine that he admires Miss Morley."
"Yes, every one thinks they are either engaged or on the brink of it. And
oh, Mr. Blackthorne, can't you or somebody put a stop to it, for it seems
such a dreadful fate for poor Gertrude?"
The curate looked startled.
"Why, I don't profess to like Mr. Zaluski," he said. "But I don't know
anything exactly against him."
"But I do. Mrs. O'Reilly has just been telling me."
"What did she tell you?" he asked with some curiosity.
"Why, she has found out that he is really a Nihilist--just think of a
Nihilist going about loose like this, and playing tennis at the rectory
and all the good houses! And not only that, but she says he is
altogether a dangerous, unprincipled man with a dreadful temper. You
can't think how unhappy she is about poor Gertrude, and so am I, for we
were at school together and have always been friends."
"I am very sorry to hear about it," said Mr. Blackthorne, "but I don't
see that anything can be done. You see, one does not like to interfere
in these sort of things. It seems officious rather, and meddlesome."
"Yes, that is the worst of it," she replied, with a sigh. "I suppose we
can do nothing. Still, it has been a great relief just to tell you about
it and get it off my mind. I suppose we can only hope that something may
put a stop to it all--we must just leave it to chance."
This sentiment amused me not a little. Leave it to chance indeed! Had
she not caused me to grow stronger and larger by every word she uttered?
And had not the conversation revealed to me Mr. Blackthorn's one
vulnerable part? I knew well enough that I should be able to dominate
his thoughts as I had done hers. Finding me burdensome, she had passed
me on to somebody else with additions that vastly increased my working
powers, and then she talked of leaving it to chance! The way in which
mortals practise pious frauds on themselves is really delightful! And
yet Lena Houghton was a good sort of girl, and had from her childhood
repeated the catechism words which proclaim that, "My duty to my
neighbour is to love him as myself . . . To keep my tongue from
evil-speaking, lying, and slandering." What is more, she took great
pains to teach these words to a big class of Sunday School children, and
went, rain or shine, to spend two hours each Sunday in a stuffy school-
room for that purpose. It was strange that she should be so ready to
believe evil of her neighbour, and so eager to spread the story. But my
progenitor is clever, and doubtless knows very well, whom to select as
his tools.
By this time they had reached a comfortable-looking, red-brick house with
white stone facings, and in the discussion of the arrangements for the
choir treat I was entirely forgotten.