But although what one may call the natural freemasonry of the children of
light had come in to protect Catharine from any touch of that greedy
credulity which had fastened on Barron; though she and Rose and Hugh
Flaxman were at one in their contemptuous repudiation of Barron's reading
of the story, the story itself, so far as it concerned Alice Puttenham
and Hester, found in all their minds but little resistance.
"It may--it may be true," said Catharine gently. "If so--what she has
gone through! Poor, poor thing!"
And as she spoke--her thin fingers clasped on her black dress, the
nun-like veil falling about her shoulders, her aspect had the frank
simplicity of those who for their Lord's sake have faced the ugly things
of life.
"What a shame--what an outrage--that any of us here should know a word
about it!" cried Rose, her small foot beating on the floor, the hot
colour in her cheek. "How shall we ever be able to face her to-night?"
Flaxman started.
"Miss Puttenham is coming to-night?"
"Certainly. She comes with Mary--who was to pick her up--after dinner."
Flaxman patrolled the room a little, in meditation. Finally he stopped
before his wife.
"You must realize, darling, that we may be all walking on the edge of a
volcano to-night."
"If only Henry Barron were!--and I might be behind to give the last
little _chiquenade_!" cried Rose.
Flaxman devoutly echoed the wish.
"But the point is--are there any more of these letters out? If so, we may
hear of others to-night. Then--what to do? Do I make straight for
Meynell?"
They pondered it.
"Impossible to leave Meynell in ignorance," said Flaxman--"if the thing
spreads Meynell of course would be perfectly justified--in his ward's
interests--in denying the whole matter absolutely, true or no. But can
he?--with Barron in reserve--using the Sabin woman's tale for his own
purposes?"
Catharine's face, a little sternly set, showed the obscure conflict
behind.
"He cannot say what is false," she said stiffly. "But he can refuse to
answer."
Flaxman looked at her with an expression as confident as her own.
"To protect a woman, my dear Catharine--a man may say anything in the
world--almost."
Catharine made no reply, but her quiet face showed she did not agree with
him.
"That child Hester!" Rose emerged suddenly from a mental voyage
of recollection and conjecture. "Now one understands why Lady
Fox-Wilton--stupid woman!--has never seemed to care a rap for her. It
must indeed be annoying to have to mother a child so much handsomer than
your own."
"I think I am very sorry for Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton," said Catharine, after
a moment.
Rose assented.
"Yes!--just an ordinary dull, pig-headed country gentleman confronted
with a situation that only occurs in plays to which you don't demean
yourself by going!--and obliged to tell and act a string of lies, when
lies happen to be just one of the vices you're not inclined to! And then
afterward you find yourself let in for living years and years with a bad
conscience--hating the cuckoo-child, too, more and more as it grows up.
Yes!--I am quite sorry for Sir Ralph!"
"By the way!"--Flaxman looked up--"Do you know I am sure that I saw
Miss Fox-Wilton--with Philip Meryon--in Hewlett's spinney this morning. I
came back from Markborough by a path I had never discovered before--and
there, sure enough, they were. They heard me on the path, I think, and
vanished most effectively. The wood is very thick. But I am sure it was
they--though they were some distance from me."
Rose exclaimed.
"Naughty, _naughty_ child: She has been absolutely forbidden to see
him, the whole Fox-Wilton family have made themselves into gaolers and
spies--and she just outwits them all! Poor Alice Puttenham hovers about
her--trying to distract and amuse her--and has no more influence than a
fly. And as for the Rector, it would be absurd, if it weren't enraging!
Look at all there is on his shoulders just now--the way people appeal to
him from all over England to come and speak--or consult--or organize--(I
don't want to be controversial, Catharine, darling!--but there it is).
And he can't make up his mind to leave Upcote for twenty-four hours till
this girl is safely off the scene! He means to take her to Paris himself
on Monday. I only hope he has found a proper sort of Gorgon to leave her
with!"
Flaxman could not but reflect that the whole relation of Meynell to his
ward might well give openings to such a scoundrel like the writer of the
anonymous letters, who was certainly acquainted with local affairs. But
he did not express this feeling aloud. Meanwhile Catharine, who showed an
interest in Hester which surprised both him and Rose, began to question
him on the subject of Philip Meryon. Meryon's mother, it seemed, had been
an intimate friend of one of Flaxman's sisters, Lady Helen Varley, and
Flaxman was well acquainted with the young man's most unsatisfactory
record. He drew a picture of the gradual degeneracy of the handsome lad
who had been the hope and delight of his warm-hearted, excitable mother;
of her deepening disappointment and premature death.
"Helen kept up with him for a time, for his mother's sake, but unluckily
he has put himself beyond the pale now, one way and another. It is too
disastrous about this pretty child! What on earth does she see in him?"
"Simply a means of escaping from her home," said Rose--"the situation
working out! But who knows whether he hasn't got a wife already? Nobody
should trust this young man farther than they can see him."
"It musn't--it can't be allowed!" said Catharine, with energy. And, as
she spoke, she seemed to feel again the soft bloom of Hester's young
cheek against her own, just as when she had drawn the girl to her, in
that instinctive caress. The deep maternity in Catharine had never yet
found scope enough in the love of one child.
Then, with a still keener sense of the various difficulties rising along
Meynell's path, Flaxman and Rose returned to the anxious discussion of
Barron's move and how to meet it. Catharine listened, saying little; and
it was presently settled that Flaxman should himself call on Dawes, the
colliery manager, that afternoon, and should write strongly to Barron,
putting on paper the overwhelming arguments, both practical and ethical,
in favour of silence--always supposing there were no further
developments.
"Tell me"--said Rose presently, when Flaxman had left the sisters
alone--"Mary of course knows nothing of that letter?"
Catharine flushed.
"How could she?" She looked almost haughtily at her sister.
Rose murmured an excuse. "Would it be possible to keep all knowledge from
Mary that there _was_ a scandal--of some sort--in circulation, if the
thing developed?"
Catharine, holding her head high, thought it would not only be possible,
but imperative.
Rose glanced at her uncertainly. Catharine was the only person of whom
she had ever been afraid. But at last she took the plunge.
"Catharine!--don't be angry with me--but I think Mary is interested in
Richard Meynell."
"Why should I be angry?" said Catharine. She had coloured a little, but
she was perfectly composed. With her gray hair, and her plain widow's
dress, she threw her sister's charming mondanity into bright relief. But
beauty--loftily understood--lay with Catharine.
"It _is_ ill luck--his opinions!" cried Rose, laying her hand upon her
sister's.
"Opinions are not 'luck,'" said Catharine, with a rather cold smile.
"You mean we are responsible for them? Perhaps we are, if we are
responsible for anything--which I sometimes doubt. But you like
him--personally?" The tone was almost pleading.
"I think he is a good man."
"And if--if--they do fall in love--what are we all to do?"
Rose looked half whimsically--half entreatingly at her sister.
"Wait till the case arises," said Catharine, rather sharply. "And please
don't interfere. You are too fond of match-making, Rose!"
"I am--I just ache to be at it, all the time. But I wouldn't do anything
that would be a grief to you."
Catharine was silent a moment. Then she said in a tone that went to the
listener's heart:
"Whatever happened--will be God's will."
She sat motionless, her eyes drooped, her features a little drawn and
pale; her thoughts--Rose knew it--in the past.
* * * * *
Flaxman came back from his interview with Dawes, reporting that nothing
could have been in better taste or feeling than Dawes's view of the
matter. As far as the Rector was concerned--and he had told Mr. Barron
so--the story was ridiculous, the mere blunder of a crazy woman; and, for
the rest, what had they to do in Upcote with ferreting into other
people's private affairs? He had locked up the letter in case it might
some time be necessary to hand it to the police, and didn't intend
himself to say a word to anybody. If the thing went any further, why of
course the Rector must be informed. Otherwise silence was best. He had
given a piece of his mind to Mr. Barron and "didn't want to be mixed up
in any such business." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Flaxman, I'm
fighting for the Church and her Creeds--I'm not out for backbiting!"
"Nice man!"--said Rose, with enthusiasm--"Why didn't I ask him to-night!"
"But"--resumed Flaxman--"he warned me that if any letter of the kind got
into the hands of a certain Miss Nairn in the village there might be
trouble."
"Miss Nairn?--Miss Nairn?" The sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I
know--the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began--a
strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the
post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because
she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and the Rector
remonstrated."
"Well, she's one of the 'aggrieved.'"
"They seem to be an odd crew! There's the old sea-captain that lives in
that queer house with the single yew tree and the boarded-up window on
the edge of the Heath. He's one of them. He used to come to church about
once a quarter and wrote the Rector interminable letters on the meaning
of Ezekiel. Then there's the publican--East--who nearly lost his license
last year--he always put it down to the Rector and vowed he'd be even
with him. I must say, the church in Upcote seems rather put to it for
defenders!"
"In Upcote," corrected Flaxman. "That's because of Meynell's personal
hold. Plenty of 'em--quite immaculate--elsewhere. However, Dawes is a
perfectly decent, honest man, and grieved to the heart by the Rector's
performances."
Catharine had waited silently to hear this remark, and then went away to
write a letter.
"Poor darling! Will she go and call on Dawes--for sympathy?" said
Flaxman, mischievously to his wife as the door closed.
"Sympathy?" Rose's face grew soft. "It's much as it was with Robert. It
ought to be so simple--and it is so mixed! Nature of course _ought_ to
have endowed all unbelievers with the proper horns and tail. And there
they go--stealing your heart away!--and your daughter's."
The Flaxmans and Catharine--who spent the day with her sister, before the
evening party--were more and more conscious of oppression as the hours
went on; as though some moral thunder hung in the air.
Flaxman asked himself again and again--"Ought I to go to Meynell at
once?" and could not satisfy himself with any answer; while he, his
wife, and his sister-in-law, being persons of delicacy, were all
ashamed of finding themselves the possessors, against their will, of
facts--supposing they were facts--to which they had no right. Meynell's
ignorance--Alice Puttenham's ignorance--of their knowledge, tormented
their consciences. And it added to their discomfort that they shared
their knowledge with such a person as Henry Barron. However, there was no
help for it.
A mild autumn day drew to its close, with a lingering gold in the west
and a rising moon. The charming old house, with its faded furniture, and
its out-at-elbows charm, was lit up softly, with lamps that made a dim
but friendly shining in its wide spaces. It had never belonged to rich
people, but always to people of taste. It boasted no Gainsboroughs or
Romneys; but there were lesser men of the date, possessed of pretty
talents of their own, painters and pastellists, who had tried their hands
on the family, of whom they had probably been the personal friends. The
originals of the portraits on the walls were known neither to history nor
scandal; but their good, modest faces, their brave red or blue coats,
their white gowns, and drooping feathers looked winningly out from the
soft shadows of the rooms. At Maudeley, Rose wore her simplest dresses,
and was astonished at the lightness of the household expenses. The house
indeed had never known display, or any other luxury than space; and to
live in it was to accept its tradition.
The week-enders arrived at tea-time; Mr. Norham with a secretary and a
valet, much preoccupied, and chewing the fag-end of certain Cabinet
deliberations in the morning; Flaxman's charming sister, Lady Helen
Varley, and her husband; his elder brother, Lord Wanless, unmarried, an
expert on armour, slightly eccentric, but still, in the eyes of all
intriguing mothers, and to his own annoyance, more than desirable as a
husband owing to the Wanless collieries and a few other trifles of the
same kind; the Bishop of Markborough; Canon France and his sister; a
young poet whose very delicate muse had lodged itself oddly in the frame
of an athlete; a high official in the Local Government Board, Mr.
Spearman, whom Rose regarded with distrust as likely to lead Hugh into
too much talk about workhouses; Lady Helen's two girls just out, as
dainty and well-dressed, as gayly and innocently sure of themselves
and their place in life as the "classes" at their best know how to
produce; and two or three youths, bound for Oxford by the end of
the week, samples, these last, of a somewhat new type in that old
University--combining the dash, family, and insolence of the old "tuft"
or Bullingdon man, with an amazing aptitude for the classics, rare indeed
among the "tufts" of old. Two out of the three had captured almost every
distinction that Oxford offers; and all three had been either gated for
lengthy periods or "sent down," or otherwise trounced by an angry
college, puzzled by the queer connection between Irelands and Hertfords
on the one hand and tipsy frolics on the other.
Meynell appeared for dinner--somewhat late. It was only with great
difficulty that the Flaxmans had prevailed on him to come, for the
purpose of meeting Mr. Norham. But the party within the church which,
foreseeing a Modernist defeat in the church courts, was appealing to
Parliament to take action, was strengthening every week; Meynell's
Saturday articles in the _Modernist_, the paper founded by the Reformers'
League, were already providing these parliamentarians with a policy and
inspiration; and if the Movement were to go on swelling during the
winter, the government might have to take very serious cognizance of it
during the spring. Mr. Norham therefore had expressed a wish for some
conversation with the Modernist leader, who happened to be Rector of
Upcote; and Meynell, who had by now cut himself adrift from all social
engagements, had with difficulty saved an evening.
As far as Norham was concerned Meynell would have greatly preferred to
take the Home Secretary for a Sunday walk on the Chase; but he had begun
to love the Flaxmans, and could not make up his mind to say No to them.
Moreover, was it not more than probable that he would meet at Maudeley
"one simple girl," of whom he did not dare in these strenuous days to let
himself think too much?
* * * * *
So that Rose, as she surveyed her dinner table, could feel that she was
maintaining the wide social traditions of England, by the mingling of as
many contraries as possible. But the oil and vinegar were after all
cunningly mixed, and the dinner went well. The Bishop was separated from
Meynell by the length of the table, and Norham was carefully protected
from Mr. Spearman, in his eyes a prince of bores, who was always
bothering the Home Office.
The Bishop, who was seated beside Rose at one end of the table, noticed
the black patch on Meynell's temple, and inquired its origin. Rose gave
him a graphic account both of the accident and the riot. The Bishop
raised his eyebrows.
"How does he contrive to live the two lives?" he said in a tone slightly
acid. "If he continues to lead this Movement, he will have to give up
fighting mobs and running up and down mines."
"What is going to happen to the Movement?" Rose asked him, with her most
sympathetic smile. Socially and in her own house she was divinely all
things to all men. But the Bishop was rather suspicious of her.
"What can happen to it but defeat? The only other alternative is the
break-up of the Church. And for that, thank God, they are not strong
enough."
"And no compromise is possible?"
"None. In three months Meynell and all his friends will have ceased to
belong to the English Church. It is very lamentable. I am particularly
sorry for Meynell himself--who is one of the best of men."
Rose felt her colour rising. She longed to ask--"But supposing _England_
has something to say?--suppose she chooses to transform her National
Church? Hasn't she the right and the power?"
But her instincts as hostess stifled her pugnacity. And the little Bishop
looked so worn and fragile that she had no heart for anything but
cossetting him. At the same time she noticed--as she had done before on
other occasions--the curious absence of any ferocity, any smell of
brimstone, in the air! How different from Robert's day! Then the
presumption underlying all controversy was of an offended authority
ranged against an apologetic rebellion. A tone of moral condemnation on
the one side, a touch of casuistry on the other, confused the issues. And
now--behind and around the combatants--the clash of equal hosts!--over
ground strewn with dead assumptions. The conflict might be no less
strenuous; nay! from a series of isolated struggles it had developed into
a world-wide battle; but the bitterness between man and man was less.
Yes!--for the nobler spirits--the leaders and generals of each army. But
what of the rank and file? And at the thought of Barron she laughed at
herself for supposing that religious rancour and religious slander had
died out of the world!
"Can we have some talk somewhere?" said Norham languidly, in Meynell's
ear, as the gentlemen left the dining-room.
"I think Mrs. Flaxman will have arranged something," said Meynell, with a
smile--detecting the weariness of the political Atlas.
And indeed Rose had all her dispositions made. They found her in the
drawing-room, amid a bevy of bright gowns and comely faces, illumined by
the cheerful light of a big wood fire--a circle of shimmering stuffs and
gems, the blaze sparkling on the pointed slippers, the white necks and
glossy hair of the girls, and on the diamonds of their mothers.
But Rose, the centre of the circle, sprang up at once, at sight of her
two _gros bonnets_.
"The green drawing-room!" she murmured in Meynell's ear, and tripped on
before them, while the incoming crowd of gentlemen, mingling with the
ladies, served to mask the movement.
Not, however, before the Bishop had perceived the withdrawal of the
politician and the heretic. He saw that Canon France, who followed him,
had also an eye to the retreating figures.
"I trust we too shall have our audience." said the Bishop, ironically.
Canon France shrugged his shoulders, smiling.
Then his small shrewd eyes scanned the Bishop intently. Nothing in that
delicate face beyond the sentiments proper to the situation?--the public
situation? As to the personal emotion involved, that, the Canon knew, was
for the time almost exhausted. The Bishop had suffered much during the
preceding months--in his affections, his fatherly feeling toward his
clergy, in his sense of the affront offered to Christ's seamless vesture
of the Church. But now, France thought, pain had been largely deadened by
the mere dramatic interest of the prospect ahead, by the anodyne of an
immense correspondence, and of a vast increase in the business of the
day, caused by the various actions pending.
Nothing else--new and disturbing--in the Bishop's mind? He moved on,
chatting and jesting with the young girls who gathered round him. He was
evidently a favourite with them, and with all nice women. Finally he sank
into an armchair beside Lady Helen Varley, exchanging Mrs. Flaxman's
cossetting for hers. His small figure was almost lost in the armchair.
The firelight danced on his slender stockinged legs, on his episcopal
shoe buckles, on the cross which adorned his episcopal breast, and then
on the gleaming snow of his hair, above his blue eyes with their slight
unearthliness, so large and flower-like in his small white face. He
seemed very much at ease--throwing off all burdens.
No!--the Slander which had begun to fly through the diocese, like an
arrow by night, had not yet touched the Bishop.
Nor Meynell himself?
Yet France was certain that Barron had not been idle, that he had not
let it drop. "I advised him to let it drop"--he said uneasily to
himself--"that was all I could do."
Then he looked round him, at the faces of the women present. He scarcely
knew any of them. Was she among them--the lady of Barron's tale? He
thought of the story as he might have thought of the plot of a novel.
When medieval charters were not to be had, it made an interesting subject
of speculation. And Barron could not have confided it to any one in the
diocese, so discreet--so absolutely discreet--as he.
* * * * *
"I gather this Movement of yours is rapidly becoming formidable?" said
Norham to his companion.
He spoke with the affectation of interest that all politicians in office
must learn. But there was no heart in it, and Meynell wondered why the
great man had desired to speak with him at all.
He replied that the growth of the Movement was certainly a startling
fact.
"It is now clear that we must ultimately go to Parliament. The immediate
result in the Church courts is of course not in doubt. But our hope lies
in such demonstrations in the country as may induce Parliament"--he
paused, laying a quiet emphasis on each word--"to reconsider--and
resettle--the conditions of membership and office in the English Church."
"Good heavens!" cried Norham, throwing up his hand--"What a prospect! If
that business once gets into the House of Commons, it'll have everything
else out."
"Yes. It's big enough to ask for time--and take it."
Norham suppressed a slight yawn as he turned in his chair.
"The House of Commons, alas!--never shows to advantage in an
ecclesiastical debate. You'd think it was in the condition of Sydney
Smith with a cold--not sure whether there were nine Articles and
Thirty-Nine Muses--or the other way on!"
Meynell looked at the Secretary of State in silence--his eyes twinkling.
He had heard from various friends of this touch of insolence in Norham.
He awaited its disappearance.
Edward Norham was a man still young; under forty indeed, though marked
prematurely by hard work and hard fighting. His black hair had receded on
the temples, and was obviously thinning on the crown of the head; he wore
spectacles, and his shoulders had taken the stoop of office work. But the
eyes behind the spectacles lost nothing that they desired to see; and the
general impression was one of bull-dog strength, which could be
impertinent and aggressive, and could also masque itself in a good humour
and charm by no means insincere. In his political career, he was on the
eve of great things; and he would owe them mainly to a power of work,
supreme even in these hard-driven days. This power of work enabled him to
glean in many fields, and keep his eye on many chances that his
colleagues perforce neglected. The Modernist Movement was one of these
chances. For years he had foreseen great changes ahead in the relations
of Church and State, and this group of men seemed to be forcing the pace.
Suddenly, as his eyes perused the strong humanity of the face beside him,
Norham changed his manner. He sat up and put down the paper-knife he had
been teasing. As he did so there was a little crash at his elbow and
something rolled on the floor.
"What's that?"
"No harm done," said Meynell, stooping--"one of our host's Greek coins.
What a beauty!" He picked up the little case and the coin which had
rolled out of it--a gold coin of Velia, with a head of Athene--one of
the great prizes of the collector.
Norham took it with eagerness. He was a Cambridge man, and a fine
scholar, and such things delighted him.
"I didn't know Flaxman cared for these things."
"He inherited them," said Meynell, pointing to the open cabinet on the
table. "But he loves them too. Mrs. Flaxman always has them put out on
great occasions. It seems to me they ought to have a watcher! They
are quite priceless, I believe. Such things are soon lost."
"Oh!--they are safe enough here," said Norham, returning the coin to its
place, with another loving look at it. Then, with an effort, he pulled
himself together, and with great rapidity began to question his
companion as to the details and progress of the Movement. All the facts
up to date, the number of Reformers enrolled since the foundation of the
League, the League's finances, the astonishing growth of its petition to
Parliament, the progress of the Movement in the Universities, among the
ardent and intellectual youth of the day, its spread from week to week
among the clergy: these things came out steadily and clearly in Meynell's
replies.
"The League was started in July--it is now October. We have fifty
thousand enrolled members, all communicants in Modernist churches.
Meetings and demonstrations are being arranged at this moment all over
England; and in January or February there will be a formal inauguration
of the new Liturgy in Dunchester Cathedral."
"Heavens!" said Norham, dropping all signs of languor. "Dunchester will
venture it?"
Meynell made a sign of assent.
"It is of course possible that the episcopal proceedings against the
Bishop, which, as you see, have just begun, may have been brought to a
close, and that the Cathedral may be no longer at our disposal, but--"
"The Dean, surely, has power to close it!"
"The Dean has come over to us, and the majority of the Canons."
Norham threw back his head with a laugh of amazement.
"The first time in history that a Dean has been of the same opinion as
his Bishop! Upon my word, the government has been badly informed or I
have not kept up. I had no idea--simply no idea--that things had gone so
far. Markborough of course gives us very different accounts--he and the
Bishops acting with him."
"A great deal is going on which our Bishop here is quite unaware of."
"You can substantiate what you have been saying?"
"I will send you papers to-morrow morning. But of course"--added Meynell,
after a pause--"a great many of us will be out of our berths, in a few
months, temporarily at least. It will rest with Parliament whether we
remain so!"
"The Non-Jurors of the twentieth century!" murmured Norham, with a
half-sceptical intonation.
"Ah, but this _is_ the twentieth century!"--said Meynell smiling. "And in
our belief the _dénouement_ will be different."
"What will you do--you clergy--when you are deprived?"
"In the first place, it will take a long time to deprive us--and so long
as there are any of us left in our livings, each will come to the help of
the other."
"But you yourself?"
"I have already made arrangements for a big barn in the village"--said
Meynell, smiling--"a great tithe-barn of the fifteenth century, a
magnificent old place, with a forest of wooden arches, and a vault like a
church. The village will worship there for a while. We shall make it
beautiful!"
Norham was silent for a moment. He was stupefied by the energy, the
passion of religious hope in the face beside him. Then the critical
temper in him conquered his emotion, and he said, not without sarcasm:
"This is all very surprising--very interesting--but what are the _ideas_
behind you? A thing like this cannot live without ideas--and I confess I
have always thought the ideas of Liberal Christianity a rather beggarly
set-out--excuse the phrase!"
"There is nothing to excuse!--the phrase fits. 'A reduced
Christianity'--as opposed to a 'full Christianity'--that is the
description lately given, I think, by a divinity professor. I don't
quarrel with it at all. Who can care for a 'reduced' anything! But a
_transformed_ Christianity--that is another matter."
"Why 'Christianity' at all?"
Meynell looked at him in a smiling silence. He--the man of religion--was
unwilling in these surroundings to play the prophet, to plunge into the
central stream of argument. But Norham, the outsider and dilettante, was
conscious of a kindled mind.
"That is the question to which it always seems to me there is no
answer," he said easily, leaning back in his chair. "You think you
can take what you like of a great historical religion and leave the
rest--that you can fall back on its pre-suppositions and build it anew.
But the pre-suppositions themselves are all crumbling. 'God,'--'soul,'
'free-will,' 'immortality'--even human identity--is there one of the old
fundamental notions that still stands, unchallenged? What are we in the
eyes of modern psychology--but a world of automata--dancing to stimuli
from outside? What has become of conscience--of the moral law--of Kant's
imperative--in the minds of writers like these?"
He pointed to two recent novels lying on the table, both of them
brilliant glorifications of sordid forms of adultery.
Meynell's look fired.
"Ah!--but let us distinguish. _We_ are not anarchists--as those men are.
Our claim is precisely that we are, and desire to remain, a part of a
_Society_--a definite community with definite laws--of a National
Church--of the nation, that is, in its spiritual aspect. The question for
which we are campaigning is as to the terms of membership in that
society. But terms and conditions there must always be. The 'wild living
intellect of man' must accept conditions in the Church, as _we_ conceive
it, no less than in the Church as Newman conceived it."
Norham shrugged his shoulders.
"Then why all this bother?"
"Because the conditions must be adjusted from time to time! Otherwise the
church suffers and souls are lost--wantonly, without reason. But there is
no church--no religion--without some venture, some leap of faith! If you
can't make any leap at all--any venture--then you remain outside--and you
think yourself, perhaps, entitled to run amuck--as these men do!" He
pointed to the books. "But _we_ make the venture!--_we_ accept the great
hypothesis--of faith."
The sound of voices came dimly to them from the farther rooms. Norham
pointed toward them.
"What difference then between you--and your Bishop?"
"Simply that in his case--as _we_ say--the hypothesis of faith is
weighted with a vast mass of stubborn matter that it was never meant to
carry--bad history, bad criticism, an out-grown philosophy. To make
it carry it--in our belief--you have to fly in the face of that gradual
education of the world--education of the mind, education of the
conscience--which is the chief mark of God in the world. But the
hypothesis of Faith, itself, remains--take it at its lowest--as rational,
as defensible, as legitimate as any other!"
"What do you mean by it? God--conscience--responsibility?"
"Those are the big words!" said Meynell, smiling--"and of course the true
ones. But what the saint means by it, I suppose, in the first instance,
is that there is in man something mysterious, superhuman--a Life in
life--which can be indefinitely strengthened, enlightened, purified, till
it reveal to him the secret of the world, till it 'toss him' to the
'breast' of God!--or again, can be weakened, lost, destroyed, till he
relapses into the animal. Believe it, we say! Live by it!--make the
venture. _Verificatur vivendo_!"
* * * * *
Again the conversation paused. From the distance once more came the merry
clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and
teasing each other--a girl's defiant voice above it--outbursts of
laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed
the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room
where he sat face to face with a visionary--surely altogether remote from
the marrying, money-making, sensuous world. Yet after all the League was
a big, practical, organized fact.
"What you have expressed--very finely, if I may say so--is of course the
mystical creed," he replied at last, with suave politeness. "But why call
it Christianity?"
As he spoke, he was conscious of a certain pride in himself. He felt
complacently that he understood Meynell and appreciated him; and that
hardly any of his colleagues would, or could have done so.
"Why call it Christianity?" he repeated.
"Because Christianity _is_ this creed!--'embodied in a tale.' And mankind
must have tales and symbols."
"And the life of Christ is your symbol?"
"More!--it is our Sacrament--the supreme Sacrament--to which all other
symbols of the same kind lead--in which they are summed up."
"And that is _why you_ make so much of the Eucharist?"
"It is--to us--just as full of mystical meaning, just as much the
meeting-place of God and man, as to the Catholic--Roman or Anglican."
"Strange that there should be so many of you!" said Norham, after a
moment, with an incredulous smile.
"Yes--that has been the discovery of the last six months. But we might
all have guessed it. The fuel has been long laid--now comes the kindling,
and the blaze!"
There was a pause. Then Norham said abruptly--
"Now what is it you want of Parliament?"
The two men plunged into a discussion, in which the politician became
presently aware that the parish priest, the visionary, possessed a
surprising amount of practical and statesman-like ability.
* * * * *
Meanwhile--a room or two away--in the great bare drawing-room, with
its faded tapestries, and its warm mixture of lamplight and firelight,
the evening guests had been arriving. Rose stood at the door of the
drawing-room, receiving, her husband beside her, Catharine a little way
behind.
"Oh!" cried Rose suddenly, under her breath, only heard by Hugh--a little
sound of perturbation.
Outside, in the hall, hardly lit at intervals by oil-lamps, a group could
be seen advancing; in front Alice Puttenham and Mary, and behind, the
Fox-Wilton party, Hester's golden head and challenging gait drawing all
_eyes_ as she passed along.
But it was on Alice Puttenham that Rose's gaze was fixed. She came
dreamily forward; and Rose saw her marked out, by the lovely oval of the
face, its whiteness, its melancholy, from all the moving shapes around
her. She wore a dress of black gauze over white; a little scarf of old
lace lay on her shoulders; her still abundant hair was rolled back from
her high brow and sad eyes. She looked very small and childish--as frail
as thistledown.
And behind her, Hester's stormy beauty! Rose gave a little gulp. Then she
found herself pressing a cold hand, and was conscious of sudden relief.
Miss Puttenham's shy composure was unchanged. She could not have looked
so--she could not surely have confronted such a gathering of neighbours
and strangers, if--
No, no! The Slander--Rose, in her turn, saw it under an image, as though
a dark night-bird hovered over Upcote--had not yet descended on this
gentle head. With eager kindness, Hugh came forward--and Catharine. They
found her a place by the fire, where presently the glow seemed to make
its way to her pale cheeks, and she sat silent and amused, watching the
triumph of Hester.
For Hester was no sooner in the room than, resenting perhaps the
decidedly cool reception that Mrs. Flaxman had given her, she at once set
to work to extinguish all the other young women there. And she had very
soon succeeded. The Oxford youths, Lord Wanless, the sons of two or three
neighbouring squires, they were all presently gathered about her, as
thick as bees on honeycomb, recognizing in her instantly one of those
beings endowed from their cradle with a double portion of sex-magic, who
leave such a wild track behind them in the world.
By her chair stood poor Stephen Barron, absorbed in her every look and
tone. Occasionally she threw him a word--Rose thought for pure mischief;
and his whole face would light up.
In the centre of the circle round Hester stood one of the Oxford lads, a
magnificent fellow, radiating health and gayety, who was trying to wear
her down in one of the word-games of the day. They fought hard and
breathlessly, everybody listening partly for the amusement of the game,
partly for the pleasure of watching the good looks of the young creatures
playing it. At last the man turned on his heel with a cry of victory.
"Beaten!--beaten!--by a hair. But you're wonderful, Miss Fox-Wilton. I
never found anybody near so good as you at it before, except a man I met
once at Newmarket--Philip Meryon--do you know him? Never saw a fellow so
good at games. But an awfully queer fish!"
It seemed to the morbid sensitiveness of Rose that there was an
instantaneous and a thrilling silence. Hester tossed her head; her
colour, after the first start, ebbed away; she grew pale.
"Yes, I do know him. Why is he a queer fish? You only say that because he
beat you!"
The young man gave a half-laugh, and looked at his friends. Then he
changed the subject. But Hester got up impatiently from her seat, and
would not play any more. Rose caught the sudden intentness with which
Alice Puttenham's eyes pursued her.
Stephen Barron came to the help of his hostess, and started more games.
Rose was grateful to him--and quite intolerably sorry for him.
"But why was I obliged to shake hands with the other brother?" she
thought rebelliously, as she watched the disagreeable face of Maurice
Barron, who had been standing in the circle not far from Hester. He had a
look of bad company which displeased her; and she resented what seemed to
her an inclination to stare at the pretty women--especially at Hester,
and Miss Puttenham. Heavens!--if that odious father had betrayed anything
to such a son! Surely, surely it was inconceivable!
The party was beginning to thin when Meynell, impatient to be quit of his
Cabinet Minister that he might find Mary Elsmere before it was too late,
hurried from the green drawing-room, in the wake of Mr. Norham, and
stumbled against a young man, who in the very imperfect illumination had
not perceived the second figure behind the Home Secretary.
"Hullo!" said Meynell brusquely, stepping back. "How do you do? Is
Stephen here?"
Maurice Barron answered in the affirmative--and added, as though from the
need to say something, no matter what:
"I hear there are some coins to be seen in there?"
"There are."
Meynell passed on, his countenance showing a sternness, a contempt
even, that was rare with him. He and Norham passed through the next
drawing-room, and met various acquaintances at the farther door. Maurice
Barron stood watching them. The persons invading the room had come
intending to see the coins. But meeting the Home Secretary they turned
back with him, and Meynell followed them, eager to disengage himself from
them. At the door some impulse made him turn and look back. He saw
Maurice Barron disappearing into the green drawing-room.
* * * * *
The night was soft and warm. Catharine and Mary had come prepared to walk
home, Catharine eagerly resuming, now that her health allowed it, the
Spartan habits of their normal life. Flaxman was drawn by the beauty of
the moonlight and the park to offer to escort them to the lower lodge.
Hester declared that she too would walk, and carelessly accepted
Stephen's escort. Meynell stepped out from the house with them, and in
the natural sequence of things he found himself with Mary.
Flaxman and Catharine, who led the way, hardly spoke to each other. They
walked, pensive and depressed. Each knew what the other was thinking of,
and each felt that nothing was to be gained for the moment by any fresh
talk about it. Just behind them they could hear Hester laughing and
sparring with Stephen; and when Catharine looked back she could see
Meynell and Mary far away, in the distance of the avenue they were
following.
* * * * *
The great lime-trees on either side threw long shadows on grass covered
with the fresh fallen leaf, which gleamed, a pale orange, through the
dusk. The sky was dappled with white cloud, and the lime-boughs overhead
broke it into patterns of delight. The sharp scent of the fallen leaves
was in the air; and the night for all its mildness prophesied winter.
Meynell seemed to himself to be moving on enchanted ground, beneath
enchanted trees. The tension of his long talk with Norham, the cares of
his leadership--the voices of a natural ambition, dropped away. Mary in a
blue cloak, a white scarf wound about her head, summed up for him the
pure beauty of nature and the night. For the first time he did not
attempt to check the thrill in his veins; he began to hope. It was
impossible to ignore the change in Mrs. Elsmere's attitude toward him. He
had no idea what had caused it; but he felt it. And he realized also that
through unseen and inexplicable gradations Mary had come mysteriously
near to him. He dared not have spoken a word of love to her; but such
feeling as theirs, however restrained, penetrates speech and gesture, and
irresistibly makes all things new.
They spoke of the most trivial matters, and hardly noticed what they
said. He all the time was thinking: "Beyond this tumult there will be
rest some day--then I may speak. We could live hardly and simply--neither
of us wants luxury. But _now_ it would be unjust--it would bring too
great a burden on her--and her poor mother. I must wait! But we shall see
each other--we shall understand each other!"
Meanwhile she, on her side, would perhaps have given the world to share
the struggle from which he debarred her.
Nevertheless, for both, it was an hour of happiness and hope.