Enid Garthorne came back from a somewhat extended honeymoon trip to the
Riviera and thence on through Northern Italy to Venice, whence she
returned via Vienna and Paris, a very different woman from the Enid
Raleigh who had cried so bitterly over that farewell letter of Vane's in
her bedroom at Oxford.
She had already schooled herself to look upon her long love for Vane as,
after all, only the sustained infatuation of a romantic school-girl, and
upon him as a high-hearted, clean-souled but utterly impossible
visionary who had sacrificed the substance for the shadow, and who,
having chosen irrevocably, could only be left to work out his own
destiny as he had shaped it.
Garthorne, in the first flush of his gratified love and triumph, had
proved an almost ideal combination of lover and husband, and of all the
brides who were honeymooning in the most luxurious resorts of the
Continent that Autumn and Winter, she, with her youth and beauty, her
handsome, devoted husband, and splendid fortunes, was accounted the most
to be envied. As week after week went by, and the intoxication of her
new life grew upon her, she gradually came to believe this herself. At
the same time, something very like true affection for this man, whose
love was very real and who seemed to find his only happiness in making
the world the most delightful of dreamlands for her, began to grow up in
her heart.
Of course, she often thought of Vane; that was inevitable. It was
inevitable, too, that she should look back now and then to some of the
many tender scenes that had passed between them; but as time went on,
these memory-pictures grew more faint. The fast-succeeding events and
the new experiences of her married life crowded swiftly and thickly upon
her, until she began to look upon the past more as a dream than as a
reality. Vane's figure receded rapidly into the background of her life,
and, as it did so, it seemed in some way to become spiritualised, lifted
above and beyond the world-sphere in which it was now her destiny to
move.
They got back to England a few weeks before the season began, and, after
a day or two in London for some necessary shopping, they went down to
Garthorne Abbey, one of the finest old seats in the Midland counties,
standing on a wooded slope in the green border which fringes the Black
Country, and facing the meadows and woodlands which stretch away down to
the banks of the Severn, beyond which rise the broken, picturesque
outlines of the Herefordshire Hills.
Here Enid Garthorne spent an entirely delightful week exploring the
stately home and the splendid domain of which she would one day be
mistress. Day after day in the early clear Spring morning, she would go
up alone on to a sort of terrace-walk which had been made round the roof
behind the stone balustrade which ran all round the house, and look out
over the green, well-wooded, softly undulating country, her heart filled
with a delighted pride and the consciousness, or, at any rate, the
belief, that after all the cloud which had come between her and Vane had
had a silver, nay, a golden lining, and that, so far, at least,
everything had been for the best.
As she looked to the eastward, she could see stretched along the horizon
a low, dun-coloured line which was not cloud. It was the smoke of the
Black Country, and underneath it hundreds and hundreds of men, aye, and
if she had known it, women, too, were toiling in forge and mine and
factory, earning the thousands which made life so easy and so pleasant
for her. To the westward were the low-lying meadows, the rolling
corn-lands, and the dark strips and patches of wood and coppice which
lay for miles on three sides of the Home Park, and beyond these she
caught bright gleams of the silver Severn rippling away to the distant
Bristol Channel; then, beyond this again, the rising uplands which
culminated in the irregular terraces of the Abberley Hills.
She knew nothing of it at the time, but far away, perched up in a leafy
nook among them was a little cluster of old grey buildings; just a
chapel, a guest-house, a refectory, and half a dozen cells forming a
tiny quadrangle which was still called St. Mary's Chapel of Ease, but
which in the old days when all the lands that Enid could see from her
roof-walk had belonged to the ancient Abbey of Ganthony--of which her
husband's name was perhaps a corruption--had been known as the House of
Our Lady of Rest.
Before the dissolution of the Monasteries it had been a place of rest
and retreat for servants of the Church who had exhausted themselves in
her service or had found reason to withdraw themselves a while from the
world and its temptations; and such, though creeds have changed, it has
practically remained until now.
The little church was nominally St. Augustine's, the Parish Church of a
little scattered hamlet which was sprinkled over the hillside beneath
it. The living had been in the gift of the Garthorne family, but Sir
Reginald's father had sold the advowson to one of the earliest pioneers
of the High Church movement in England, and through this purchase it had
passed into the keeping of a small Anglican Order calling itself the
Fraternity of St. Augustine.
This little Brotherhood had not only maintained the traditions of the
ancient Order of St. Augustine, Preacher, Saint and Martyr, but had done
all that was possible to revive them in their ancient purity. The little
monastery among the hills, though it had passed under another
ecclesiastical rule, was still a place where priests and deacons might
come either to rest from the labours which they had endured in the
service of their Master, or to separate themselves from the din and
turmoil of the world, and, amidst the peace and silence of nature,
wrestle with the doubts or temptations that had beset them. The Vicar of
the parish and Father Superior of the Retreat was an aged priest who had
welcomed three generations of his younger brothers in Christ as
temporary sojourners in this little sanctuary, and had sent them away
comforted and strengthened to take their place again in the ranks of the
army which wages that battle which began when the first prophecy was
uttered in Eden, and which will only end when the sound of the Last
Trump marshalls the hosts of men before the bar of the Last Tribunal.
Vane had been the occupant of one of the tiny little rooms, which had
once been the monks' cells, for a little over three months when Enid
came to her future home. The rooms were on the side of the quadrangle
facing the valley, and from his little window he could distinctly see
the great white house, with its broad terraces standing out against the
dark background formed by the trees which crowned the ridge behind it.
He, of course, knew perfectly well to whom it belonged and who would one
day be mistress of it, and one day he saw from the _Times_, the only
secular newspaper admitted into St. Augustine's, that Mr. and Mrs.
Reginald Garthorne had returned from their wedding trip on the
Continent, and, after a day or two in London, would proceed for a few
weeks to Garthorne Abbey to recuperate before the fatigues of the
season, of which it was generally expected Mrs. Garthorne would be one
of the most brilliant ornaments.
The sight of it, the knowledge of all the splendours that it contained,
of all the worldly wealth of which it was the material sign, had not
affected him in the least. He had already lifted himself beyond the
possibility of envying anyone the possession of such things as these. He
could see over and beyond them as a man on a mountain top might look
over a little spot on the plain beneath, which to those who dwelt in it
was a great and splendid city.
Even the knowledge that Enid was coming to the Abbey as the wife of its
future master only drew just a single quiet sigh from his lips, only
caused him to give one swift look back into the world that he had left,
for after all this was only what he had expected, what he knew to be
almost inevitable when he had first made up his mind to sacrifice his
love to what he believed to be his duty.
She had passed out of his existence and he had passed out of hers.
Henceforth their life-circles might touch, but they could never
intersect each other. Of course, they would meet again in the world, but
only as friends, with perhaps a warmer hand-clasp for the sake of the
days that were past and gone for ever, but that was all. He had but one
mistress now, the Church. He was hers body and soul to the end, for he
had sworn an allegiance which could not be broken save at the risk of
his own soul.
One morning, about a week after he had read the paragraph in the
_Times_, he was out on the hillside, going from cottage to cottage of
the hundred or so sprinkled round the high road across the hills, for it
was his day to carry out the parochial duties of the fraternity. Every
day one of the Fathers, as the villagers called them, made his rounds,
starting soon after sunrise and sometimes not getting back till after
dark, for Father Philip had no belief in the efficacy of fasting and
meditation and prayer unless they were supplemented by a literal
obedience to the commands of Him who went about doing good. When priest
or deacon entered the Retreat, no matter what he was, rich or poor,
wedded or single, he had to take the vows of poverty, obedience and
chastity. When he left to go back into the world he was absolved from
them, and was free to do what seemed best to his own soul.
Vane had just left a little farmhouse upon which a great shame and
sorrow had fallen. As too often happens in this district, the only
daughter of the house, discontented with the quiet monotony of the farm
life, had gone away to Kidderminster to work in a carpet factory. That
was nearly eighteen months ago, and the night before she had come back
ragged, hungry, and penniless, with a nameless baby in her arms.
As he was walking along the road which led from this farmhouse to the
next hamlet thinking of that vanished sister of his and of the poor
imbecile in the French asylum, he turned a bend and saw a figure such as
was very seldom seen among the villages approaching him about two
hundred yards away. He stopped, almost as though he had received a blow
on the chest. It was impossible for his eyes to mistake it, and with a
swift sense, half of anger and half of disgust, he felt his heart begin
to beat harder and quicker. It was Enid, Enid in the flesh.
He had read of her marriage, and of her return with her husband with
hardly an emotion. Day after day he had looked upon her future home, the
home in which she would live as the wife of another man and the mother
of his children, without a single pang of envy or regret--and now, at
the first sight of her, his heart was beating, his pulses throbbing, and
his nerves thrilling.
True, every heart-beat, every pulse-throb, was a sin now, for she was a
wedded wife--and meanwhile she was still coming towards him. In a few
minutes more, since it was impossible for him to pass her as a stranger,
her hand would be clasped in his, and he would be once more looking into
those eyes which had so often looked up into his, hearing words of
greeting from those lips which he had so often kissed, and whose kisses
were now vowed to another man.
There was a little lane, turning off to the left a few yards away. She
had never seen him in his clerical dress, so she could not have
recognised him yet. She would only take him for one of the clergy at
the Retreat, he had only to turn down the lane--
But no, his old manhood rose in revolt at the idea. That would be a
flight, a mean, unworthy flight, unworthy alike of himself and the high
resolves that he had taken. It was hard, almost impossible even to think
of _her_ as a temptation, as an enemy to his soul, and yet, even if she
were, as the leaping blood in his veins told him she might be, was it
for him, the young soldier of the Cross, just buckling on his armour, to
turn his back upon the first foe he met, even though that foe had once
been his best beloved? He set his teeth and clenched his hands, and
walked on past the entrance to the lane.
A minute or two later their eyes met. A look of astonished recognition
instantly leapt into hers. She shifted the silver handled walking stick
into her left hand, and held out the other, daintily gauntleted in tan.
"Why Vane!" she exclaimed, in a voice which was still as sweet and soft
as ever, but which seemed to him to have a strange and somewhat
discordant note in it, "you don't mean to say that it's you. I suppose,
as a matter of fact, I ought to say Mr. Maxwell now--I mean now that
you're a clergyman--but after all, those little things don't matter
between such very old friends as we are, and I'm sure Reggie won't mind,
in fact, I shan't let him if he does. Just fancy meeting you here! I
suppose you're one of the Fathers--is that it?--at the little monastery
up there. I've only been home a week, and last night I heard about this
place, so I drove over to see it. But you haven't told me how you are
yet, and how you like your--your new life."
As a matter of fact, she had rattled all this off so quickly that Vane
had not had time to reply to her greeting. He had taken her hand and,
somewhat tremblingly, returned the frank, firm pressure. While she was
speaking, he looked into her face and saw that she had already assumed
the invisible but impenetrable mask in which the society woman plays her
part in the tragic comedy of Vanity Fair. It was the same face and yet
not the same, the same voice and yet a different one, and the sight and
sound acted upon him like a powerful tonic. This was not the Enid he had
loved, after all, at least, so it seemed to him. He had forgotten, or
had never known that every woman is a born actress, and that even the
brief training which Enid had already had was quite enough to enable her
to say one thing, while thinking and feeling something entirely
different.
He smiled for the first time as their hands parted, and said, in a voice
whose calm frankness surprised himself:
"Good morning, Mrs. Garthorne!"--he absolutely couldn't trust himself to
pronounce the word "Enid"--"Thanks, I'm very well, and, as you have
guessed, I am located for the present up in the Retreat yonder. I
confess I was a little startled to see you coming up the road, although
I saw from the _Times_ the other day that you had come back from the
Continent and were coming down here to the Abbey. Of course, you would
hear of the Retreat sooner or later, and as it's a bit of a show place
in its humble way, I had an idea that you would come over some time to
see it."
"Oh, but I suppose you don't allow anything so unholy as a woman to
enter the sacred precincts, do you?"
The artificial flippancy of her tone annoyed him perhaps even more than
it shocked him. There was a sort of scoff in it which rightly or wrongly
he took to himself. It seemed to say "You, of course, have done with
women now and for ever; henceforth, you must only look upon us as
temptations to sin, and so I can say what I like to you."
"On the contrary," he replied, forcing a smile, "the Retreat is as open
for visiting purposes to women as it is to men. It is nothing at all
like a monastery, you know, although report says it is. It is simply a
place where clergymen who have need of it can go and rest and think and
pray in peace, and act as curates to the Superior who is also vicar of
the parish. In fact, it has been known for mothers and sisters of the
men to take rooms in the villages, and they are even invited to lunch."
"Dear me," she said, "how very charming! Of course, you will come over
to the Abbey and have dinner some evening, and sleep, and the next
morning I shall expect you to let me drive you over here and invite me
to lunch."
"Of course, I shall be delighted," he said, purposely using the most
conventional terms, "but I ought to tell you that there is a condition
attached to our hospitality."
"Oh, indeed, and what is that?" she said, glancing up at him with one of
her old saucy looks. "I hope it isn't very stringent. Won't you turn and
walk a little way with me and tell me all about it? There is my pony
carriage coming up the hill after me. It will overtake us soon, and then
I won't take up your time any longer, for I daresay you are going on
some good work."
Again the half-veiled flippancy of her tone jarred upon him and made him
clench his teeth for an instant.
"With the greatest pleasure," he replied, turning and walking with long,
slow strides beside her. His blood was quite cool now, and a great
weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"It is this way," he went on, speaking as calmly as though he were
addressing an utter stranger. "You know, or perhaps you do not know yet,
that, beautiful and almost arcadian as this place is, there is, I regret
to say, a great deal of poverty and sorrow, and, I am afraid, sin too,
and it is part of our duty at the Retreat to seek this out and do what
we can to relieve it; but there is much of that kind of work which women
can do infinitely better than men, and therefore, when a woman enters
our gates as our guest, we ask her to do what she can to help us."
"I see," she said, more softly and more naturally than she had spoken
before. "It is a very just and a very good condition, and I shall do my
best to fulfil it; indeed, as I suppose I shall some day be Lady of the
Manor here, it will be my duty to do it."
"I am very glad to hear you say so," he said, with a touch of warmth in
his tone, "very glad. And if you like you can begin at once. You see
that little farmhouse up the road yonder. Well, there is not only
sorrow, but sin and shame as well in that house. The old people are most
respectable, and they were once fairly comfortably off before the
agricultural depression ruined them. They are wretchedly poor now, but
they struggle on somehow. About eighteen months ago their daughter went
off to Kidderminster to work in the mills. She said she would get good
wages and send some of them home every week. For some months she did
send them a few shillings, and then what is unfortunately only too
common about here happened. For a long time they lost sight of her, and
last night she came back, starving, with a baby and no husband."
He said this in a perfectly passionless and impersonal tone, just as a
doctor might describe the symptoms of a disease. "If you care to, you
can do a great deal of good there," he went on. "I have just been there.
If you like I will take you in and introduce you."
She stopped and hesitated for a moment. It struck her as such an utter
reversal of their former relationships, that it seemed almost to
obliterate the line which lies between the sublime and the ridiculous.
Then she moved forward again, saying, in her own old natural voice:
"Thank you, Vane. I have often wondered since what sort of circumstances
we should meet under again, but I never thought of anything like this.
Yes, I will come, and if there is anything I can do I will do it."
"I thought you would," he said quietly, as he strode along beside her
towards the farmhouse.