FATHER BENWELL’S CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
_To Mr. Bitrake. Private and Confidential._
SIR--I understand that your connection with the law does not exclude
your occasional superintendence of confidential inquiries, which are not
of a nature to injure your professional position. The inclosed letter
of introduction will satisfy you that I am incapable of employing your
experience in a manner unbecoming to you, or to myself.
The inquiry that I propose to you relates to a gentleman named
Winterfield. He is now staying in London, at Derwent’s Hotel, and is
expected to remain there for a week from the present date. His place of
residence is on the North Devonshire coast, and is well known in that
locality by the name of Beaupark House.
The range of my proposed inquiry dates back over the last four or five
years--certainly not more. My object is to ascertain, as positively as
may be, whether, within this limit of time, events in Mr. Winterfield’s
life have connected him with a young lady named Miss Stella Eyrecourt.
If this proves to be the case it is essential that I should be made
acquainted with the whole of the circumstances.
I have now informed you of all that I want to know. Whatever the
information may be, it is most important that it shall be information
which I can implicitly trust. Please address to me, when you write,
under cover to the friend whose letter I inclose.
I beg your acceptance--as time is of importance--of a check for
preliminary expenses, and remain, sir, your faithful servant,
AMBROSE BENWELL.
II.
_To the Secretary, Society of Jesus, Rome._
I inclose a receipt for the remittance which your last letter confides
to my care. Some of the money has been already used in prosecuting
inquiries, the result of which will, as I hope and believe, enable me to
effectually protect Romayne from the advances of the woman who is bent
on marrying him.
You tell me that our Reverend Fathers, lately sitting in council on the
Vange Abbey affair, are anxious to hear if any positive steps have
yet been taken toward the conversion of Romayne. I am happily able to
gratify their wishes, as you shall now see.
Yesterday, I called at Romayne’s hotel to pay one of those occasional
visits which help to keep up our acquaintance. He was out, and Penrose
(for whom I asked next) was with him. Most fortunately, as the event
proved, I had not seen Penrose, or heard from him, for some little time;
and I thought it desirable to judge for myself of the progress that he
was making in the confidence of his employer. I said I would wait.
The hotel servant knows me by sight. I was shown into Romayne’s
waiting-room.
This room is so small as to be a mere cupboard. It is lighted by a glass
fanlight over the door which opens from the passage, and is supplied
with air (in the absence of a fireplace) by a ventilator in a second
door, which communicates with Romayne’s study. Looking about me, so far,
I crossed to the other end of the study, and discovered a dining-room
and two bedrooms beyond--the set of apartments being secluded, by means
of a door at the end of the passage, from the other parts of the hotel.
I trouble you with these details in order that you may understand the
events that followed.
I returned to the waiting-room, not forgetting of course to close the
door of communication.
Nearly an hour must have passed before I heard footsteps in the passage.
The study door was opened, and the voices of persons entering the room
reached me through the ventilator. I recognized Romayne, Penrose--and
Lord Loring.
The first words exchanged among them informed me that Romayne and his
secretary had overtaken Lord Loring in the street, as he was approaching
the hotel door. The three had entered the house together--at a time,
probably, when the servant who had admitted me was out of the
way. However it may have happened, there I was, forgotten in the
waiting-room!
Could I intrude myself (on a private conversation perhaps) as an
unannounced and unwelcome visitor? And could I help it, if the talk
found its way to me through the ventilator, along with the air that I
breathed? If our Reverend Fathers think I was to blame, I bow to any
reproof which their strict sense of propriety may inflict on me. In the
meantime, I beg to repeat the interesting passages in the conversation,
as nearly word for word as I can remember them.
His lordship, as the principal personage in social rank, shall be
reported first. He said: “More than a week has passed, Romayne, and we
have neither seen you nor heard from you. Why have you neglected us?”
Here, judging by certain sounds that followed, Penrose got up
discreetly, and left the room. Lord Loring went on.
He said to Romayne: “Now we are alone, I may speak to you more freely.
You and Stella seemed to get on together admirably that evening when you
dined with us. Have you forgotten what you told me of her influence over
you? Or have you altered your opinion--and is that the reason why you
keep away from us?”
Romayne answered: “My opinion remains unchanged. All that I said to you
of Miss Eyrecourt, I believe as firmly as ever.”
His lordship remonstrated, naturally enough. “Then why remain away from
the good influence? Why--if it really _can_ be controlled--risk another
return of that dreadful nervous delusion?”
“I have had another return.”
“Which, as you yourself believe, might have been prevented! Romayne, you
astonish me.”
There was a time of silence, before Romayne answered this. He was a
little mysterious when he did reply. “You know the old saying, my good
friend--of two evils, choose the least. I bear my sufferings as one of
two evils, and the least of the two.”
Lord Loring appeared to feel the necessity of touching a delicate
subject with a light hand. He said, in his pleasant way: “Stella isn’t
the other evil, I suppose?”
“Most assuredly not.”
“Then what is it?”
Romayne answered, almost passionately: “My own weakness and selfishness!
Faults which I must resist, or become a mean and heartless man. For
me, the worst of the two evils is there. I respect and admire Miss
Eyrecourt--I believe her to be a woman in a thousand--don’t ask me to
see her again! Where is Penrose? Let us talk of something else.”
Whether this wild way of speaking offended Lord Loring, or only
discouraged him, I cannot say. I heard him take his leave in these
words: “You have disappointed me, Romayne. We will talk of something
else the next time we meet.” The study door was opened and closed.
Romayne was left by himself.
Solitude was apparently not to his taste just then. I heard him call to
Penrose. I heard Penrose ask: “Do you want me?”
Romayne answered: “God knows I want a friend--and I have no friend near
me but you! Major Hynd is away, and Lord Loring is offended with me.”
Penrose asked why.
Romayne, thereupon, entered on the necessary explanation. As a priest
writing to priests, I pass over details utterly uninteresting to us. The
substance of what he said amounted to this: Miss Eyrecourt had produced
an impression on him which was new to him in his experience of women.
If he saw more of her, it might end--I ask your pardon for repeating
the ridiculous expression--in his “falling in love with her.” In this
condition of mind or body, whichever it may be, he would probably be
incapable of the self-control which he had hitherto practiced. If
she consented to devote her life to him, he might accept the cruel
sacrifice. Rather than do this, he would keep away from her, for her
dear sake--no matter what he might suffer, or whom he might offend.
Imagine any human being, out of a lunatic asylum, talking in this
way. Shall I own to you, my reverend colleague, how this curious
self-exposure struck me? As I listened to Romayne, I felt grateful to
the famous Council which definitely forbade the priests of the Catholic
Church to marry. _We_ might otherwise have been morally enervated by
the weakness which degrades Romayne--and priests might have become
instruments in the hands of women.
But you will be anxious to hear what Penrose did under the
circumstances. For the moment, I can tell you this, he startled me.
Instead of seizing the opportunity, and directing Romayne’s mind to the
consolations of religion, Penrose actually encouraged him to reconsider
his decision. All the weakness of my poor little Arthur’s character
showed itself in his next words.
He said to Romayne: “It may be wrong in me to speak to you as freely
as I wish to speak. But you have so generously admitted me to your
confidence--you have been so considerate and so kind toward me--that I
feel an interest in your happiness, which perhaps makes me over bold.
Are you very sure that some such entire change in your life as your
marriage might not end in delivering you from your burden? If such a
thing could be, is it wrong to suppose that your wife’s good influence
over you might be the means of making your marriage a happy one? I
must not presume to offer an opinion on such a subject. It is only my
gratitude, my true attachment to you that ventures to put the question.
Are you conscious of having given this matter--so serious a matter for
you--sufficient thought?”
Make your mind easy, reverend sir! Romayne’s answer set everything
right.
He said: “I have thought of it till I could think no longer. I still
believe that sweet woman might control the torment of the voice. But
could she deliver me from the remorse perpetually gnawing at my heart? I
feel as murderers feel. In taking another man’s life--a man who had not
even injured me!--I have committed the one unatonable and unpardonable
sin. Can any human creature’s influence make me forget that? No more of
it--no more. Come! Let us take refuge in our books.”
Those words touched Penrose in the right place. Now, as I understand his
scruples, he felt that he might honorably speak out. His zeal more than
balanced his weakness, as you will presently see.
He was loud, he was positive, when I heard him next. “No!” he burst
out, “your refuge is not in books, and not in the barren religious forms
which call themselves Protestant. Dear master, the peace of mind, which
you believe you have lost forever, you will find again in the divine
wisdom and compassion of the holy Catholic Church. There is the remedy
for all that you suffer! There is the new life that will yet make you a
happy man!”
I repeat what he said, so far, merely to satisfy you that we can trust
his enthusiasm, when it is once roused. Nothing will discourage,
nothing will defeat him now. He spoke with all the eloquence of
conviction--using the necessary arguments with a force and feeling which
I have rarely heard equaled. Romayne’s silence vouched for the effect on
him. He is not the man to listen patiently to reasoning which he thinks
he can overthrow.
Having heard enough to satisfy me that Penrose had really begun the good
work, I quietly slipped out of the waiting-room and left the hotel.
To-day being Sunday, I shall not lose a post if I keep my letter open
until to-morrow. I have already sent a note to Penrose, asking him to
call on me at his earliest convenience. There may be more news for you
before post time.
Monday, 10 A.M..
There _is_ more news. Penrose has just left me.
His first proceeding, of course, was to tell me what I had already
discovered for myself. He is modest, as usual, about the prospect of
success which awaits him. But he has induced Romayne to suspend his
historical studies for a few days, and to devote his attention to the
books which we are accustomed to recommend for perusal in such cases as
his. This is unquestionably a great gain at starting.
But my news is not at an end yet. Romayne is actually playing our
game--he has resolved definitely to withdraw himself from the influence
of Miss Eyrecourt! In another hour he and Penrose will have left London.
Their destination is kept a profound secret. All letters addressed to
Romayne are to be sent to his bankers.
The motive for this sudden resolution is directly traceable to Lady
Loring.
Her ladyship called at the hotel yesterday evening, and had a private
interview with Romayne. Her object, no doubt, was to shake his
resolution, and to make him submit himself again to Miss Eyrecourt’s
fascinations. What means of persuasion she used to effect this purpose
is of course unknown to us. Penrose saw Romayne after her ladyship’s
departure, and describes him as violently agitated. I can quite
understand it. His resolution to take refuge in secret flight (it is
really nothing less) speaks for itself as to the impression produced on
him, and the danger from which, for the time at least, we have escaped.
Yes! I say “for the time at least.” Don’t let our reverend fathers
suppose that the money expended on my private inquiries has been money
thrown away. Where these miserable love affairs are concerned, women are
daunted by no adverse circumstances and warned by no defeat. Romayne has
left London, in dread of his own weakness--we must not forget that. The
day may yet come when nothing will interpose between us and failure but
my knowledge of events in Miss Eyrecourt’s life.
For the present, there is no more to be said.