natures, and neither unduly inquisitive about the other's affairs.
Gwynneth only knew that her friend's married life had been a very short
one; for her own part, she had said nothing to let Nurse Ella suppose
that she had herself been even asked in marriage. But one night they
were speaking of another nurse, who had left St. Hilda's that day, in
floods of tears, to be married the following week.
"If I felt like that," Gwynneth had declared, "I wouldn't be married at
all."
Nurse Ella looked up quickly, her glasses flaming in the firelight.
"What, not after you had given your word?" said she.
"Certainly not, if I felt I had made a mistake." Gwynneth was staring
into the fire.
"You would break your solemn promise in a thing like that?" the other
persisted.
"Better one promise than two lives," replied Gwynneth, with oracular
brevity. Nurse Ella watched her in sidelong astonishment.
"It's easy to talk, my dear! I believe you are the last person who would
do anything so dishonourable."
"I don't call it dishonourable."
"But it is, to break your word."
"Suppose you have changed?"
"You have no business to change. Say you'll do a thing, and do it."
The spectacled face had assumed a rigid cast which Gwynneth knew well,
and for which Nurse Ella had just the chin.
"But supposing you never really loved----"
"Love is an inexact term; it's not always easy to tell when it applies
to your feelings, and when it does not. But when you say you'll marry
anybody, that's a definite promise, and nothing in the world should make
you break it, unless it's been extracted under false pretences. We are
both very positive, aren't we?" and Nurse Ella smiled. "I wonder why you
are, Gwynneth?"
"Because," said the girl, impelled to frankness, yet hanging her head,
"as a matter of fact, I've been more or less engaged myself."
"And you got out of it?"
"I broke it off."
"Simply because you had changed?"
"No--it was a mistake from the beginning. I had never really cared. That
was my shame."
"And you broke your word--you had the courage!"
The tone was a low one of mere surprise. There was more in the look
which accompanied the tone. But Gwynneth had her eyes turned inward, and
her wonder was not yet.
"It had to be done," she said simply. "It was humiliating enough, but it
was not so bad as going on . . . Can anything be so bad as marrying a
man you do not love, just because you have made a mistake, and are too
proud to admit it?"
"No . . . you are right . . . that is the worst of all."
It might have been a studied picture that the two young women made, in
the old oak room, with the firelight falling on their quaint sweet garb,
and reddening their pensive faces, only conscious of the inner self.
Nurse Ella was standing up, gazing down into the fire, her back turned
to Gwynneth; but now her tone was enough. It was neither wistful nor
bitter, but only heavy with conviction; and in another moment Nurse Ella
was gone, not more abruptly than usual, but without letting Gwynneth see
her face again. Then Gwynneth recalled the look with which the other had
exclaimed upon her courage, and either she flattered herself, or that
look had been one of envy pure and simple. Could it be that her friend's
decided character was all self-conscious and acquired? Was her
intolerance of the slightest hesitation, in matters of no account, a
life's reaction from a fatal irresolution in some crisis of her own
career?
Gwynneth never knew; for a fine mutual reserve distinguished the
intimacy of this pair, and even drew them together, opposite as they
were in so many other respects, more than impulsive confidences on
either side. One had suffered; the other was suffering now; each was a
little mystery to her friend. And there was one more reason for this:
neither was sure of the other's sympathy: at every point of contact they
diverged.
So Gwynneth used to wonder whether Nurse Ella was in reality a widow at
all, and Nurse Ella was quite sure that Gwynneth was still in love,
probably with the man she had jilted, according to the wise way of
women; she was so ready to speak of love in the abstract; and once she
spoke so passionately. This was in Kensington Gardens, one foggy Sunday,
when the two nurses were on their way to church; for they were allowed
to worship where they listed after matins at St. Hilda's. Nurse Ella
rented a sitting under a fashionable preacher who discoursed with much
wisdom and some acidity on topics of the hour; but Gwynneth was still
seeking her spiritual ideal. They would walk together as far as the
Bayswater Road, where their ways diverged, unless Nurse Ella could
induce Gwynneth to go with her; on this particular morning they were
arguing about a novel when the houses loomed upon them through the bare
trees and the fog.
"She never would have forgiven him," Nurse Ella had declared, in crisp
settlement of the point at issue. "No young wife would forgive a young
husband who behaved like that. So it may be the cleverest novel in the
language, but it isn't true to life." Whereupon Gwynneth, who had been
defending a masterpiece with laudable spirit, walked some yards in
silence. "Are you sure that it matters how people behave," she then
inquired, "if you really love them?"
"How they behave?" echoed her friend. "Why, Gwynneth, of course! Nothing
does matter except behaviour."
"It wouldn't to me," Gwynneth exclaimed, almost through her teeth.
"But surely what one does is everything!"
"Not in love," averred Gwynneth, whose convictions were few but firm;
"and those two are more in love than any other couple I know in fiction
or real life. No; you love people for what they are, not for what they
do."
Nurse Ella laughed outright.
"That may be good metaphysics," said she, "but it's shocking
common-sense! Our actions are the only possible test of our character,
as its fruit is the only test of a tree."
In Gwynneth's eyes burnt wondrous fires, and on her cheeks; and her
breath was coming very quickly. But most persons look straight ahead as
they walk and talk, and between these two fell the kindly fog besides.
"Suppose you loved somebody," the young girl cried at last; "and
suppose you suddenly discovered he had once done something
dreadful--unspeakable. Would that alter your feeling towards him?"
"It could never fail to do so, Gwynneth."
"It would not alter mine!"
Nurse Ella turned her head. But in the road the fog seemed thicker than
in the gardens. And, apart from its vigour, Gwynneth's tone had sounded
impersonal enough.
"I believe it would," her friend persisted, "when the time came."
"And I know that it would not," said Gwynneth, half under her breath and
half through her teeth.
"Well, Gwynneth," said Nurse Ella, with a laugh, "we were evidently born
to differ. In my view that would be the one sort of excuse for changing
one's mind about a man--whereas you see others!"
"But I am not talking about one's mind," cried Gwynneth; "the feeling I
mean, the feeling those two have in the book, lies infinitely deeper
than the mind."
"And no crime could alter it?"
"Not if he atoned--not if the rest of his life were one long atonement."
"But, Gwynneth, that would make all the difference."
Gwynneth walked on in silence. She was reconsidering her own last words.
"Atonement or no atonement," she exclaimed at length, "it would make no
difference--if I loved the man. Atonement or no atonement!" repeated
Gwynneth defiantly.
Nurse Ella had a passion for the last word, but they were come to her
corner, and there was Gwynneth glowing through the fog, her eyes alight,
her cheeks flaming, a new being in the puzzled eyes of her friend.
"Come with me, Gwynneth," begged Nurse Ella, at length; "don't go off by
yourself. Come, dear, and hear a shrewd, hard-headed sermon, without
sentiment or superstition!"
Gwynneth smiled. That was the last thing to meet her mood.
"Then where shall you go?"
"Either St. Simeon's or All Souls'," said Gwynneth. "I haven't made up
my mind."
Nurse Ella shook her head over an admission as characteristic as her
disapproval. This was the Gwynneth that she knew.
"When do you make it up!" exclaimed Nurse Ella without inquiry.
"When it's a matter of the least importance," said Gwynneth, choosing to
reply. "What can it signify which church I go to, what difference can it
possibly make? As a matter of fact I rather think of going to All
Souls'."
"I thought you didn't care about music and nothing else?"
"I don't know that there is nothing else. I think of going to see. I
have often thought of it before, but St. Simeon's is rather nearer, and
I generally end by going there. I shall decide on the way."
"What a girl you are, Gwynneth!" exclaimed Nurse Ella, with frank
impatience. "You never seem to know your own mind--never!"
Gwynneth made no reply; but she kindled afresh, and this time very
tenderly, as she went her own way through the fog.
XXX
THE WOMAN'S HOUR
All Souls' was dark and hazy with its share of the ubiquitous fog, here
a little aggravated by the subtle fumes of incense newly burnt. In the
haze hung quivering constellations of sallow gaslight, and through it
gleamed an embroidered frontal, and the silken backs of praying priests,
lit by candles four. Delicate strains came from an invisible organ; a
light patter and a rich rustling from the feet and garments of some
departing after matins, some taking their places for choral eucharist,
women to the left, men to the right. Men and women, goers and comers
alike, with few exceptions, bowed the knee with Romish humility at the
first or the last glimpse of that shimmering frontal with the four
candles above and the motionless vestments below.
The congregation was one of well-dressed women and well-to-do men; their
quiet devotion was not the less noteworthy on that account. A fine
reverence animated every face: the stray observer would have missed the
passive countenance of the merely pious, as Gwynneth did, and discovered
in its stead the happy ardour of those whose religion was a delight
rather than a duty. Yet the congregation took scarcely any part in the
actual service. Few untrained voices joined in the exquisite singing;
few, in the body of the church, left their places to take part in the
sacred climax. The congregation might have been only an audience; yet
somehow it was not. Somehow also there was nothing spectacular in an
office of equal dignity, distinction, and fervour.
Yet the yellow lights in a yellow fog, the perfect organ, trained
voices, rich embroideries, incense, genuflexions, all these seemed at
one religious pole; and Long Stow church on a summer's day, with the sky
above and the birds singing, and Mr. Carlton in his surplice in the sun,
surely that was at the other! It was Gwynneth's fate, at all events, to
carry that single service in her heart and mind for ever, and to put
every other one against it. She did so now, involuntarily at first, and
then unwillingly, as she knelt or stood at the end of her row--her
cambric cuffs and fine lawn streamers in high relief against the rich
furs and the sombre feathers of those about her.
On the other side of the nave, far back and close to the wall, a
grizzled gentleman stood and knelt by turns, in much obscurity; and his
attention never flagged. No detail of the elaborate ritual appeared
unfamiliar to this worshipper, and yet for a time his expression was
rather that of the alien critic. Gradually, however, the lines
disappeared from his forehead, his eyes opened wider, and brightened
with the peaceful ardour which he himself had already remarked in the
eyes of others. He was a tall thin man, very weather-beaten and rather
bent, wearing a new overcoat and a soft muffler; there was nothing in
his appearance to declare him of the cloth himself. His grey beard was
close trimmed. He wore gloves and carried a tall hat shoulder high in
the press going out. He was no more readily recognisable as the lonely
builder of Long Stow church, than Gwynneth in her nurse's garb as the
niece of Sir Wilton Gleed. But their separate fates brought them face to
face in the porch, and recognition was immediate on both sides.
"Miss Gleed?" said Robert Carlton, raising his hat before it covered his
grey hairs.
"Mr. Carlton!" she exclaimed in turn. There had been no time to think,
and her voice told only of her surprise; her own ear noticed it, and she
had time to marvel at herself.
"I thought I could not be mistaken," Carlton was saying. And they were
shaking hands.
"I never expected to see you here," said Gwynneth, with a strange
emphasis, as though the declaration were due to herself.
"I never thought of coming until an hour or two ago."
No more had Gwynneth: then the miracle was twofold. Her heart gave
thanks. It was not afraid.
Meanwhile the crowd was carrying them gently, insensibly, but side by
side, across the flagged yard to the gate.
"It's the first Sunday I've spent in town for years," observed Carlton;
"you are here altogether, I believe?"
"Well, for some years, at least. I am learning to be a nurse."
And Gwynneth blushed for her conspicuous attire, just as Carlton gave a
downward glance at the quaint cap on a level with his shoulder.
"So I heard," he said. "May I ask which hospital you are at?" He could
recall none where the uniform was so picturesque.
"You would not know it, Mr. Carlton; it is a private hospital on Campden
Hill."
They had passed through the gate, and they paused with one consent.
"Are you returning there now, Miss Gleed?"
"Yes--through the gardens."
"Then so far our way is the same." He did not ask whether he might
accompany her, but took the outer edge of the pavement as a matter of
course. "I am staying at Charing Cross," he explained as they walked;
"early this morning I went to the abbey. I did mean to go back there;
then I suddenly thought I should like to come here instead. I was once
one of the assistant clergy at this church."
"I know," said Gwynneth. She would not deny it. That was why she had so
often thought of coming to All Souls'--only to resist the temptation
time and time again. Why, to-day of all days, had she been unable to
resist? Why had she thought of him this morning, and why had the thought
been so strong? These were questions for a lifetime's consideration. Now
she was walking at his side.
"It was strange to go back there after so many years," pursued Carlton,
with the fine unguarded candour which he had brought back with him into
the world; "that service, in particular, was very strange to me. I did
not care for it at first. It seemed so artificial after our simple
service in the country. Then I looked at the faces of the men near me,
and I saw how narrow one can get. It was not artificial to them; it was
only beautiful; and there lies the root of the whole matter. Simple
services for simple folk--that is my watchword now--but beauty,
brightness, elaboration by all means for those who need it and can
appreciate it. It is the right thing for these rich congregations of
hard-worked professional men and busy society women; the trappings of
their religious life must not compare meanly with those of their daily
lives; let us order God's house as we would our own. But the opposite is
the case--though the principle is the same--with a primitive country
parish like ours at Long Stow . . . And yet I had not the wit to see
that when I went there first."
He was musing aloud as men seldom do unless very sure of their audience.
How came he to be so sure of Gwynneth? They had seen nothing of each
other; this was the first time they had been alone together long enough
to exchange ideas; yet in a moment he was revealing his as few men do to
more than one woman in the world. And the one woman's heart was singing
at his side.
She was with him; that was enough. Already it was the sweetest hour of
all her life; for the thought of him had haunted her for months, and was
full of pain; but in his presence all pain passed away. That was so
wonderful to Gwynneth! So wonderful was it that she herself was aware of
it at the time; it was her one great discovery and surprise. To be with
him was to forget all that he had ever done, all that she had never
before forgotten--the good with the evil. It was to sweep aside the
earthly and the palpable, to feel the divine domination of spirit over
spirit, and the peace which comes with even the secret surrender of soul
to soul. Hers was a conscious surrender, and Gwynneth made it without
shame. Since it was her secret, why should she be ashamed? She was
exalted, exultant, and yet serene. She might carry her secret to the
grave; her life would be the richer for it, for these few minutes, for
every word he spoke. So she caught each one as it fell, and laid the
treasure in her heart, even while she listened for the next.
But in a minute they were come as far as he intended to escort her;
there were the palings and the stark trees close upon them in the fog;
and an omnibus passing, huge as a house. Gwynneth had been treading thin
air; now she was back in the sticky streets, inhaling the raw mist, to
exhale it in clouds under a microscopic magenta sun. They had stopped at
the corner; he was hesitating: her breath disappeared.
"I have to get over to that side sooner or later," he said. "I may just
as well walk across with you, if you don't mind."
"I shall be delighted," said Gwynneth, frankly, brightly; but her breath
came like a puff of smoke, and she felt her colour come with it as they
crossed the road.
"I want to tell you about the church," he said, as they entered upon the
broad walk. "This is the first Sunday that I haven't taken service there
since the beginning of August."
"The first!" exclaimed Gwynneth. "Have you actually gone on up to now
without a roof?"
Carlton turned in his stride.
"But we have a roof, Miss Gleed!"
"You have one?"
"It has been on some weeks."
Gwynneth was standing quite still. "Do you mean to say that the church
is finished?" she cried, incredulous.
"Yes," said Carlton; "thank God, I can say that at last."
"But it seems such a short time! I don't understand. It seemed
impossible to me--by yourself?"
"Oh, but I have not been by myself. I have had help."
"At last!"
"I wonder you have not heard. Everybody has helped me--everybody!"
"Do you mean--my people--among others?"
And Gwynneth preferred walking on to facing him here.
"Is it possible you haven't heard?" exclaimed Carlton, incredulous in
turn.
"Not a word," replied Gwynneth, bitterly. "They never write."
But her bitterness was new-born of her indignation, not that they never
wrote, but that they had not written to tell her this. He told her
himself with much feeling and more embarrassment.
"Why, Miss Gleed, I owe everything to Sir Wilton! It is the last thing I
ever--I can hardly realise it yet--or trust myself to speak of it to
you. My heart is so full! But it is Sir Wilton who has finished the
church; he came to me, and he took it over. He called for tenders; he
poured in workmen; the place has been like a hive. So the roof was on in
a month; and we never missed a Sunday, we had one service all the time;
but now we have three and four--thanks entirely to Sir Wilton Gleed!"
He paused. But Gwynneth had nothing to say, and his embarrassment
increased. It was so hard to speak of Sir Wilton's magnanimity without
alluding to his previous attitude, and thus indirectly to its notorious
cause; and Carlton could not see that his companion was entirely taken
up with his news, could not realise the surprise it was to her, or
apprehend for a moment what impression it had made. He might, however,
have had some inkling of her view from the manner in which Gwynneth
eventually said that she was glad to hear her uncle had done something.
"Something?" echoed Carlton. "He has done everything, and it is like his
generosity that you should hear it first from me!"
Gwynneth shook her head unseen, though now he was looking at her, his
eyebrows raised; but she seemed intent upon picking her steps through
the thin mud of the broad walk.
"And what that is like," continued Carlton, "from my point of view, you
will see when I tell you why I am in town to-day. It is the first Sunday
I have missed; but Mr. Preston of Linkworth and other friends are kindly
dividing my duty between them. Sir Wilton has arranged that, by the way.
He telegraphed yesterday to save me the journey; for I was going down
for the day, and returning to-morrow. Yet I came up last Monday, and am
still hard at work--buying for the new church."
Gwynneth asked what it was that he had to buy; but her tone was so
mechanical that Robert Carlton did not at once reply. He was beginning
to feel strangely disappointed, to wish that he had gone his own gait to
Charing Cross, or at least held his peace about the church. But there
was one point upon which he felt constrained to convince his companion
before they parted; he might do more than justice to an absent man; but
she should not do less. And the spire of St. Mary Abbot's was already
dimly discernible through the yellow haze.
"There is nothing we have not to buy, for the interior," he said at
length. "The lectern is the one exception, and I have had it
straightened and lacquered into a new thing. Sir Wilton wanted me to
keep it as it was; but that would never have done. However, he would
have an inscription to the effect that it is the same lectern which was
in the fire, which is quite a sufficient advertisement of the fact. I
was in favour of restoring the communion plate also, but Sir Wilton
insisted on presenting us with a new set, which I have been choosing
among other things this week. The other things are too numerous to
mention--carpets, curtains, collecting-boxes, alms-bags, a Litany desk,
and the hundred and one things you take for granted as part of the
church itself. But each has to be chosen and bought, and I only wish
that I had had your help. I have found the best things most difficult to
choose--the plate and a very handsome cross and candlesticks of polished
brass--all of which are my choice, but Sir Wilton's gift. So is the
organ which is being built for us. Can you wonder, then, that his
generosity has moved me more than I can possibly tell you?"
"Indeed, no!" cried Gwynneth, in her own kind voice; but her honour was
all for the man who claimed it for another; and, until she opened them
now, her lips had been pursed in mute rebellion. She could fancy so much
that the true generosity would never even see! Gwynneth had not that
sort herself; she did not profess to have it. On the other hand, she was
anxious to be fair, even in her own mind; so she asked a question or two
concerning the hired and skilled labour which had been thrown into the
scale with such effect; and, after all, it appeared that Sir Wilton
Gleed had not paid for this.
"But he wanted to," said Carlton, quickly. "It was not his fault that I
would not hear of his doing so; it was my obstinacy, because I had set
my heart on rebuilding the church myself, in one sense or the other."
"Yet you said he took it over from you!"
"So he did, Miss Gleed. He lent me his influence and support; that was
much more to me than the money, which I had and didn't want. Besides, he
is a business man, which I am not, and he did take the whole business
off my hands. That is what I meant."
Gwynneth wondered whether it was what the countryside understood; but
said no more about the matter. She had other things to think of during
their last moments together; for she had stopped at the corner near the
palace; nor did she mean to let him accompany her any further. She was
still so decided and serene. She was still exalted and strengthened out
of all self-knowledge in the quiet presence of the man she loved, and
must love for ever, even though her love were to remain her heart's
prisoner for this life. This life was not all.
So it was that she could look her last upon him, perhaps for ever, with
her own face transfigured and beautified by a joy not of earth alone: so
it was that she could speak to him, and hear him speak, without a tremor
to the end.
His church was to be consecrated that day week--Advent Sunday. The
bishop was coming to perform the ceremony; his voice softened as he
spoke of the bishop, who was to be his own guest at the rectory. His
face shone as he added that. It was going to be a very simple ceremony.
And here something set him twisting at one of his gloves; then suddenly
he looked Gwynneth in the eyes.
"You don't happen to be coming down, Miss Gleed?"
"I don't think it very likely."
"It--it wouldn't of course be worth your while----"
"It would! It would! It would be more than worth it; but, to be quite
frank, I don't know that I shall ever come down again, Mr. Carlton."