A STAGGERING QUESTION.
It was time the curate should take his leave. Bascombe would go out
with him and have his last cigar. The wind had fallen, and the moon
was shining. A vague sense of contrast came over Wingfold, and as he
stepped on the pavement from the threshold of the high gates of
wrought iron, he turned involuntarily and looked back at the house.
It was of red brick, and flat-faced in the style of Queen Anne's
time, so that the light could do nothing with it in the way of
shadow, and dwelt only on the dignity of its unpretentiousness. But
aloft over its ridge the moon floated in the softest, loveliest
blue, with just a cloud here and there to show how blue it was, and
a sparkle where its blueness took fire in a star. It was autumn,
almost winter, below, and the creepers that clung to the house waved
in the now gentle wind like the straggling tresses of old age; but
above was a sky that might have overhung the last melting of spring
into summer. At the end of the street rose the great square tower of
the church, seeming larger than in the daylight. There was something
in it all that made the curate feel there ought to be more--as if
the night knew something he did not; and he yielded himself to its
invasion.
His companion having carefully lighted his cigar all round its
extreme periphery, took it from his mouth, regarded its glowing end
with a smile of satisfaction, and burst into a laugh. It was not a
scornful laugh, neither was it a merry or a humorous laugh; it was
one of satisfaction and amusement.
"Let me have a share in the fun," said the curate.
"You have it," said his companion--rudely, indeed, but not quite
offensively, and put his cigar in his mouth again.
Wingfold was not one to take umbrage easily. He was not important
enough in his own eyes for that, but he did not choose to go
farther.
"That's a fine old church," he said, pointing to the dark mass
invading the blue--so solid, yet so clear in outline.
"I am glad the mason-work is to your mind," returned Bascombe,
almost compassionately. "It must be some satisfaction, perhaps
consolation to you."
Before he had thus concluded the sentence a little scorn had crept
into his tone.
"You make some allusion which I do not quite apprehend," said the
curate.
"Now, I am going to be honest with you," said Bascombe abruptly, and
stopping, he turned towards his companion, and took the
full-flavoured Havannah from his lips. "I like you," he went on,
"for you seem reasonable; and besides, a man ought to speak out what
he thinks. So here goes!--Tell me honestly--do you believe one word
of all that!"
And he in his turn pointed in the direction of the great tower.
The curate was taken by surprise and made no answer: it was as if he
had received a sudden blow in the face. Recovering himself
presently, however, he sought room to pass the question without
direct encounter.
"How came the thing there?" he said, once more indicating the
church-tower.
"By faith, no doubt," answered Bascombe, laughing,--"but not your
faith; no, nor the faith of any of the last few generations."
"There are more churches built now, ten times over, than in any
former period of our history."
"True; but of what sort? All imitation--never an original amongst
them all!"
"If they had found out the right way, why change it?"
"Good! But it is rather ominous for the claim of a divine origin to
your religion that it should be the only one thing that in these
days takes the crab's move--backwards. You are indebted to your
forefathers for your would-be belief, as well as for their genuine
churches. You hardly know what your belief is. There is my aunt--as
good a specimen as I know of what you call a Christian!--so
accustomed is she to think and speak too after the forms of what you
heard my cousin call heathenism, that she would never have
discovered, had she been as wide awake as she was sound asleep, that
the song I sung was anything but a good Christian ballad."
"Pardon me; I think you are wrong there."
"What! did you never remark how these Christian people, who profess
to believe that their great man has conquered death, and all that
rubbish--did you never observe the way they look if the least
allusion is made to death, or the eternity they say they expect
beyond it? Do they not stare as if you had committed a breach of
manners? Religion itself is the same way: as much as you like about
the church, but don't mention Christ! At the same time, to do them
justice, it is only of death in the abstract they decline to hear;
they will listen to the news of the death of a great and good man,
without any such emotion. Look at the poetry of death--I mean the
way Christian poets write of it! A dreamless sleep they call it--the
bourne from whence, knows no waking. 'She is gone for ever!' cries
the mother over her daughter. And that is why such things are not to
be mentioned, because in their hearts they have no hope, and in
their minds no courage to face the facts of existence. We haven't
the pluck of the old fellows, who, that they might look death
himself in the face without dismay, accustomed themselves, even at
their banquets, to the sight of his most loathsome handiwork, his
most significant symbol--and enjoyed their wine the better for
it!--your friend Horace, for instance."
"But your aunt now would never consent to such an interpretation of
her opinions. Nor do I allow that it is fair."
"My dear sir, if there is one thing I pride myself upon, it is fair
play, and I grant you at once she would not. But I am speaking, not
of creeds, but of beliefs. And I assert that the forms of common
Christian speech regarding death come nearer those of Horace than
your saint, the old Jew, Saul of Tarsus."
It did not occur to Wingfold that people generally speak from the
surfaces, not the depths of their minds, even when those depths are
moved; nor yet that possibly Mrs. Ramshorn was not the best type of
a Christian, even in his soft-walking congregation! In fact, nothing
came into his mind with which to meet what Bascombe said--the real
force whereof he could not help feeling--and he answered nothing.
His companion followed his apparent yielding with fresh pressure.
"In truth," he said, "I do not believe that YOU believe more than an
atom here and there of what you profess. I am confident you have
more good sense by a great deal."
"I am sorry to find that you place good sense above good faith, Mr.
Bascombe; but I am obliged by your good opinion, which, as I read
it, amounts to this--that I am one of the greatest humbugs you have
the misfortune to be acquainted with."
"Ha! ha! ha!--No, no; I don't say that. I know so well how to make
allowance for the prejudices a man has inherited from foolish
ancestors, and which have been instilled into him, as well, with his
earliest nourishment, both bodily and mental. But--come now--I do
love open dealing--I am myself open as the day--did you not take to
the church as a profession, in which you might eat a piece of
bread--as somebody says in your own blessed Bible--dry enough bread
it may be, for the old lady is not over-generous to her younger
children--still a gentlemanly sort of livelihood?"
Wingfold held his peace. It was incontestably with such a view that
he had signed the articles and sought holy orders--and that without
a single question as to truth or reality in either act.
"Your silence is honesty, Mr. Wingfold, and I honour you for it,"
said Bascombe. "It is an easy thing for a man in another profession
to speak his mind, but silence such as yours, casting a shadow
backward over your past, require courage: I honour you, sir."
As he spoke, he laid his hand on Wingfold's shoulder with the grasp
of an athlete.
"Can the sherry have anything to do with it?" thought the curate.
The fellow was, or seemed to be, years younger than himself! It was
an assurance unimaginable--yet there it stood--six feet of it good!
He glanced at the church tower. It had not vanished in mist! It
still made its own strong, clear mark on the eternal blue!
"I must not allow you to mistake my silence, Mr. Bascombe," he
answered the same moment. "It is not easy to reply to such demands
all at once. It is not easy to say in times like these, and at a
moment's notice, what or how much a man believes. But whatever my
answer might be had I time to consider it, my silence must at least
not be interpreted to mean that I do NOT believe as my profession
indicates. That, at all events, would be untrue."
"Then I am to understand, Mr. Wingfold, that you neither believe nor
disbelieve the tenets of the church whose bread you eat?" said
Bascombe, with the air of a reprover of sin.
"I decline to place myself between the horns of any such dilemma,"
returned Wingfold, who was now more than a little annoyed at his
persistency in forcing his way within the precincts of another's
personality.
"It is but one more proof--more than was necessary--to convince me
that the old system is a lie--a lie of the worst sort, seeing it may
prevail even to the self-deception of a man otherwise remarkable for
honesty and directness. Good night, Mr. Wingfold."
With lifted hats, but no hand-shaking, the men parted.