name?”
He remonstrated, with a gentleness that might have touched the heart of
any woman. “Do you still refuse to believe that I never deceived you?
Has time not softened your heart to me yet?”
She was more contemptuous toward him than ever. “Spare me your
protestations,” she said; “I heard enough of them two years since. Will
you do what I ask of you?”
“You know that I will.”
“Put an end to your acquaintance with my husband. Put an end to it,” she
repeated vehemently, “from this day, at once and forever! Can I trust
you to do it?”
“Do you think I would have entered this house if I had known he was your
husband?” He made that reply with a sudden change in him--with a rising
color and in firm tones of indignation. In a moment more, his voice
softened again, and his kind blue eyes rested on her sadly and
devotedly. “You may trust me to do more than you ask,” he resumed. “You
have made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“When Mr. Romayne introduced us, you met me like a stranger--and you
left me no choice but to do as you did.”
“I wish you to be a stranger.”
Her sharpest replies made no change in his manner. He spoke as kindly
and as patiently as ever.
“You forget that you and your mother were my guests at Beaupark, two
years ago--”
Stella understood what he meant--and more. In an instant she remembered
that Father Benwell had been at Beaupark House. Had he heard of the
visit? She clasped her hands in speechless terror.
Winterfield gently reassured her. “You must not be frightened,” he said.
“It is in the last degree unlikely that Mr. Romayne will ever find out
that you were at my house. If he does--and if you deny it--I will do for
you what I would do for no other human creature; I will deny it too. You
are safe from discovery. Be happy--and forget me.”
For the first time she showed signs of relenting--she turned her head
away, and sighed. Although her mind was full of the serious necessity of
warning him against Father Benwell, she had not even command enough over
her own voice to ask how he had become acquainted with the priest.
His manly devotion, the perfect and pathetic sincerity of his respect,
pleaded with her, in spite of herself. For a moment she paused to
recover her composure. In that moment Romayne returned to them with the
drawing in his hand.
“There!” he said. “It’s nothing, this time, but some children gathering
flowers on the outskirts of a wood. What do you think of it?”
“What I thought of the larger work,” Winterfield answered. “I could look
at it by the hour together.” He consulted his watch. “But time is a hard
master, and tells me that my visit must come to an end. Thank you, most
sincerely.”
He bowed to Stella. Romayne thought his guest might have taken the
English freedom of shaking hands. “When will you come and look at the
pictures again?” he asked. “Will you dine with us, and see how they bear
the lamplight?”
“I am sorry to say I must beg you to excuse me. My plans are altered
since we met yesterday. I am obliged to leave London.”
Romayne was unwilling to part with him on these terms. “You will let me
know when you are next in town?” he said.
“Certainly!”
With that short answer he hurried away.
Romayne waited a little in the hall before he went back to his wife.
Stella’s reception of Winterfield, though not positively ungracious,
was, nevertheless, the reverse of encouraging. What extraordinary
caprice had made her insensible to the social attractions of a man
so unaffectedly agreeable? It was not wonderful that Winterfield’s
cordiality should have been chilled by the cold welcome that he
had received from the mistress of the house. At the same time, some
allowance was to be made for the influence of Stella’s domestic
anxieties, and some sympathy was claimed by the state of her health.
Although her husband shrank from distressing her by any immediate
reference to her reception of his friend, he could not disguise from
himself that she had disappointed him. When he went back to the room,
Stella was lying on the sofa with her face turned toward the wall. She
was in tears, and she was afraid to let him see it. “I won’t disturb
you,” he said, and withdrew to his study. The precious volume which
Winterfield had so kindly placed at his disposal was on the table,
waiting for him.
Father Benwell had lost little by not being present at the introduction
of Winterfield to Stella. He had witnessed a plainer betrayal of emotion
when they met unexpectedly in Lord Loring’s picture gallery. But if he
had seen Romayne reading in his study, and Stella crying secretly on the
sofa, he might have written to Rome by that day’s post, and might have
announced that he had sown the first seeds of disunion between husband
and wife.
CHAPTER V.
FATHER BENWELL’S CORRESPONDENCE.
_To the Secretary, S. J., Rome._
In my last few hasty lines I was only able to inform you of the
unexpected arrival of Mrs. Romayne while Winterfield was visiting
her husband. If you remember, I warned you not to attach any undue
importance to my absence on that occasion. My present report will
satisfy my reverend brethren that the interests committed to me are as
safe as ever in my hands.
I have paid three visits, at certain intervals. The first to Winterfield
(briefly mentioned in my last letter); the second to Romayne; the third
to the invalid lady, Mrs. Eyrecourt. In every case I have been rewarded
by important results.
We will revert to Winterfield first. I found him at his hotel, enveloped
in clouds of tobacco smoke. Having led him, with some difficulty, into
talking of his visit to Ten Acres Lodge, I asked how he liked Romayne’s
pictures.
“I envy him his pictures.” That was the only answer.
“And how do you like Mrs. Romayne?” I inquired next.
He laid down his pipe, and looked at me attentively. My face (I flatter
myself) defied discovery. He inhaled another mouthful of tobacco, and
began to play with his dog. “If I must answer your question,” he
burst out suddenly, “I didn’t get a very gracious reception from Mrs.
Romayne.” There he abruptly stopped. He is a thoroughly transparent man;
you see straight into his mind, through his eyes. I perceived that he
was only telling me a part (perhaps a very small part) of the truth.
“Can you account for such a reception as you describe?” I asked. He
answered shortly, “No.”
“Perhaps I can account for it,” I went on. “Did Mr. Romayne tell his
wife that I was the means of introducing you to him?”
He fixed another searching look on me. “Mr. Romayne might have said so
when he left me to receive his wife at the door.”
“In that case, Mr. Winterfield, the explanation is as plain as the sun
at noonday. Mrs. Romayne is a strong Protestant, and I am a Catholic
priest.”
He accepted this method of accounting for his reception with an alacrity
that would not have imposed on a child. You see I had relieved him from
all further necessity of accounting for the conduct of Mrs. Romayne!
“A lady’s religious prejudices,” I proceeded in the friendliest way,
“are never taken seriously by a sensible man. You have placed Mr.
Romayne under obligations to your kindness--he is eager to improve his
acquaintance with you. You will go again to Ten Acres Lodge?”
He gave me another short answer. “I think not.”
I said I was sorry to hear it. “However,” I added, “you can always see
him here, when you are in London.” He puffed out a big volume of smoke,
and made no remark. I declined to be put down by silence and smoke. “Or
perhaps,” I persisted, “you will honor me by meeting him at a simple
little dinner at my lodgings?” Being a gentleman, he was of course
obliged to answer this. He said, “You are very kind; I would rather not.
Shall we talk of something else, Father Benwell?”
We talked of something else. He was just as amiable as ever--but he was
not in good spirits. “I think I shall run over to Paris before the end
of the month,” he said. “To make a long stay?” I asked. “Oh, no! Call in
a week or ten days--and you will find me here again.”
When I got up to go, he returned of his own accord to the forbidden
subject. He said, “I must beg you to do me two favors. The first is, not
to let Mr. Romayne know that I am still in London. The second is, not to
ask me for any explanations.”
The result of our interview may be stated in very few words. It has
advanced me one step nearer to discovery. Winterfield’s voice, look, and
manner satisfied me of this--the true motive for his sudden change
of feeling toward Romayne is jealousy of the man who has married Miss
Eyrecourt. Those compromising circumstances which baffled the inquiries
of my agent are associated, in plain English, with a love affair.
Remember all that I have told you of Romayne’s peculiar disposition--and
imagine, if you can, what the consequences of such a disclosure will be
when we are in a position to enlighten the master of Vange Abbey!
As to the present relations between the husband and wife, I have only to
tell you next what passed, when I visited Romayne a day or two later. I
did well to keep Penrose at our disposal. We shall want him again.
*****
On arriving at Ten Acres Lodge, I found Romayne in his study. His
manuscript lay before him--but he was not at work. He looked worn and
haggard. To this day I don’t know from what precise nervous malady he
suffers; I could only guess that it had been troubling him again since
he and I last met.
My first conventional civilities were dedicated, of course, to his
wife. She is still in attendance on her mother. Mrs. Eyrecourt is now
considered to be out of danger. But the good lady (who is ready enough
to recommend doctors to other people) persists in thinking that she is
too robust a person to require medical help herself. The physician in
attendance trusts entirely to her daughter to persuade her to persevere
with the necessary course of medicine. Don’t suppose that I trouble you
by mentioning these trumpery circumstances without a reason. We shall
have occasion to return to Mrs. Eyrecourt and her doctor.
Before I had been five minutes in his company, Romayne asked me if I had
seen Winterfield since his visit to Ten Acres Lodge.
I said I had seen him, and waited, anticipating the next question.
Romayne fulfilled my expectations. He inquired if Winterfield had left
London.
There are certain cases (as I am told by medical authorities) in which
the dangerous system of bleeding a patient still has its advantages.
There are other cases in which the dangerous system of telling the truth
becomes equally judicious. I said to Romayne, “If I answer you honestly,
will you consider it as strictly confidential? Mr. Winterfield, I regret
to say, has no intention of improving his acquaintance with you. He
asked me to conceal from you that he is still in London.”
Romayne’s face plainly betrayed that he was annoyed and irritated.
“Nothing that you say to me, Father Benwell, shall pass the walls
of this room,” he replied. “Did Winterfield give any reason for not
continuing his acquaintance with me?”
I told the truth once more, with courteous expressions of regret.
“Mr. Winterfield spoke of an ungracious reception on the part of Mrs.
Romayne.”
He started to his feet, and walked irritably up and down the room. “It
is beyond endurance!” he said to himself.
The truth had served its purpose by this time. I affected not to have
heard him. “Did you speak to me?” I asked.
He used a milder form of expression. “It is most unfortunate,” he said.
“I must immediately send back the valuable book which Mr. Winterfield
has lent to me. And that is not the worst of it. There are other volumes
in his library which I have the greatest interest in consulting--and it
is impossible for me to borrow them now. At this time, too, when I have
lost Penrose, I had hoped to find in Winterfield another friend who
sympathized with my pursuits. There is something so cheering and
attractive in his manner--and he has just the boldness and novelty of
view in his opinions that appeal to a man like me. It was a pleasant
future to look forward to; and it must be sacrificed--and to what? To a
woman’s caprice.”
From our point of view this was a frame of mind to be encouraged. I
tried the experiment of modestly taking the blame on myself. I
suggested that I might be (quite innocently) answerable for Romayne’s
disappointment.
He looked at me thoroughly puzzled. I repeated what I had said to
Winterfield. “Did you mention to Mrs. Romayne that I was the means of
introducing you--?”
He was too impatient to let me finish the sentence. “I did mention it to
Mrs. Romayne,” he said. “And what of it?”
“Pardon me for reminding you that Mrs. Romayne has Protestant
prejudices,” I rejoined. “Mr. Winterfield would, I fear, not be very
welcome to her as the friend of a Catholic priest.”
He was almost angry with me for suggesting the very explanation which
had proved so acceptable to Winterfield.
“Nonsense!” he cried. “My wife is far too well-bred a woman to let her
prejudices express themselves in _that_ way. Winterfield’s personal
appearance must have inspired her with some unreasonable antipathy,
or--”
He stopped, and turned away thoughtfully to the window. Some vague
suspicion had probably entered his mind, which he had only become aware
of at that moment, and which he was not quite able to realize as yet. I
did my best to encourage the new train of thought.
“What other reason _can_ there be?” I asked.
He turned on me sharply. “I don’t know. Do you?”
I ventured on a courteous remonstrance. “My dear sir! if you can’t find
another reason, how can I? It must have been a sudden antipathy, as you
say. Such things do happen between strangers. I suppose I am right in
assuming that Mrs. Romayne and Mr. Winterfield are strangers?”
His eyes flashed with a sudden sinister brightness--the new idea had
caught light in his mind. “They _met_ as strangers,” he said.
There he stopped again, and returned to the window. I felt that I might
lose the place I had gained in his confidence if I pressed the subject
any further. Besides, I had my reasons for saying a word about Penrose
next. As it happened, I had received a letter from him, relating to his
present employment, and sending kindest regards to his dear friend and
master in the postscript.
I gave the message. Romayne looked round, with an instant change in his
face. The mere sound of Penrose’s name seemed to act as a relief to the
gloom and suspicion that had oppressed him the moment before. “You don’t
know how I miss the dear gentle little fellow,” he said, sadly.
“Why not write to him?” I suggested. “He would be so glad to hear from
you again.”
“I don’t know where to write.”
“Did I not send you his address when I forwarded your letter to him?”
“No.”
“Then let me atone for my forgetfulness at once.”
I wrote down the address, and took my leave.
As I approached the door I noticed on a side table the Catholic volumes
which Penrose left with Romayne. One of them was open, with a pencil
lying beside it. I thought that a good sign--but I said nothing.
Romayne pressed my hand at parting. “You have been very kind and
friendly, Father Benwell,” he said. “I shall be glad to see you again.”
Don’t mention it in quarters where it might do me harm. Do you know, I
really pitied him. He has sacrificed everything to his marriage--and his
marriage has disappointed him. He was even reduced to be friendly with
Me.
Of course when the right time comes I shall give Penrose leave of
absence. Do you foresee, as I do, the speedy return of “the dear gentle
little fellow” to his old employment; the resumed work of conversion
advancing more rapidly than ever; and the jealousy of the Protestant
wife aggravating the false position in which she is already placed by
her equivocal reception of Winterfield? You may answer this by reminding
me of the darker side of the prospect. An heir may be born; and the
heir’s mother, backed by general opinion, may insist--if there is
any hesitation in the matter--on asserting the boy’s natural right to
succeed his father.
Patience, my reverend colleague! There is no threatening of any such
calamity yet. And, even if it happens, don’t forget that Romayne has
inherited a second fortune. The Vange estate has an estimated value.
If the act of restitution represented that value in ready money, do you
think the Church would discourage a good convert by refusing his check?
You know better than that--and so do I.
*****
The next day I called to inquire how Mrs. Eyrecourt was getting on. The
report was favorable. Three days later I called again. The report
was still more encouraging. I was also informed that Mrs. Romayne had
returned to Ten Acres Lodge.
Much of my success in life has been achieved by never being in a hurry.
I was not in a hurry now. Time sometimes brings opportunities--and
opportunities are worth waiting for.
Let me make this clear by an example.
A man of headlong disposition, in my place, would have probably spoken
of Miss Eyrecourt’s marriage to Romayne at his first meeting with
Winterfield, and would have excited their distrust, and put them
respectively on their guard, without obtaining any useful result. I can,
at any time, make the disclosure to Romayne which informs him that his
wife had been Winterfield’s guest in Devonshire, when she affected to
meet her former host on the footing of a stranger. In the meanwhile,
I give Penrose ample opportunity for innocently widening the breach
between husband and wife.
You see, I hope, that if I maintain a passive position, it is not from
indolence or discouragement. Now we may get on.
After an interval of a few days more I decided on making further
inquiries at Mrs. Eyrecourt’s house. This time, when I left my card,
I sent a message, asking if the lady could receive me. Shall I own my
weakness? She possesses all the information that I want, and she has
twice baffled my inquiries. Under these humiliating circumstances, it is
part of the priestly pugnacity of my disposition to inquire again.
I was invited to go upstairs.
The front and back drawing-rooms of the house were thrown into one.
Mrs. Eyrecourt was being gently moved backward and forward in a chair
on wheels, propelled by her maid; two gentlemen being present, visitors
like myself. In spite of rouge and loosely folded lace and flowing
draperies, she presented a deplorable spectacle. The bodily part of her
looked like a dead woman, painted and revived--while the moral part, in
the strongest contrast, was just as lively as ever.
“So glad to see you again, Father Benwell, and so much obliged by your
kind inquiries. I am quite well, though the doctor won’t admit it. Isn’t
it funny to see me being wheeled about, like a child in a perambulator?
Returning to first principles, I call it. You see it’s a law of my
nature that I must go about. The doctor won’t let me go about outside
the house, so I go about inside the house. Matilda is the nurse, and I
am the baby who will learn to walk some of these days. Are you tired,
Matilda? No? Then give me another turn, there’s a good creature.
Movement, perpetual movement, is a law of Nature. Oh, dear no, doctor;
I didn’t make that discovery for myself. Some eminent scientific person
mentioned it in a lecture. The ugliest man I ever saw. Now back again,
Matilda. Let me introduce you to my friends, Father Benwell. Introducing
is out of fashion, I know. But I am one of the few women who can
resist the tyranny of fashion. I like introducing people. Sir John
Drone--Father Benwell. Father Benwell--Doctor Wybrow. Ah, yes, you know
the doctor by reputation? Shall I give you his character? Personally
charming; professionally detestable. Pardon my impudence, doctor, it is
one of the consequences of the overflowing state of my health. Another
turn, Matilda--and a little faster this time. Oh, how I wish I was
traveling by railway!”
There, her breath failed her. She reclined in her chair, and fanned
herself silently--for a while.
I was now able to turn my attention to the two visitors. Sir John Drone,
it was easy to see, would be no obstacle to confidential conversation
with Mrs. Eyrecourt. An excellent country gentleman, with the bald head,
the ruddy complexion, and the inexhaustible capacity for silence, so
familiar to us in English society--there you have the true description
of Sir John. But the famous physician was quite another sort of man.
I had only to look at him, and to feel myself condemned to small talk
while _he_ was in the room.
You have always heard of it in my correspondence, whenever I have been
in the wrong. I was in the wrong again now--I had forgotten the law of
chances. Capricious Fortune, after a long interval, was about to declare
herself again in my favor, by means of the very woman who had twice
already got the better of me. What a recompense for my kind inquiries
after Mrs. Eyrecourt! She recovered breath enough to begin talking
again.
“Dear me, how dull you are!” she said to us. “Why don’t you amuse a poor
prisoner confined to the house? Rest a little, Matilda, or you will be
falling ill next. Doctor! is this your last professional visit?”
“Promise to take care of yourself, Mrs. Eyrecourt, and I will confess
that the professional visits are over. I come here to-day only as a
friend.”
“You best of men! Do me another favor. Enliven our dullness. Tell us
some interesting story about a patient. These great doctors, Sir John,
pass their lives in a perfect atmosphere of romance. Dr. Wybrow’s
consulting-room is like your confessional, Father Benwell. The most
fascinating sins and sorrows are poured into his ears. What is the last
romance in real life, doctor, that has asked you to treat it medically?
We don’t want names and places--we are good children; we only want a
story.”
Dr. Wybrow looked at me with a smile.
“It is impossible to persuade ladies,” he said, “that we, too,
are father-confessors in our way. The first duty of a doctor, Mrs.
Eyrecourt--”
“Is to cure people, of course,” she interposed in her smartest manner.
The doctor answered seriously. “No, indeed. That is only the second
duty. Our first duty is invariably to respect the confidence of our
patients. However,” he resumed in his easier tone, “I happen to
have seen a patient to-day, under circumstances which the rules of
professional honor do not forbid me to mention. I don’t know, Mrs.
Eyrecourt, whether you will quite like to be introduced to the scene of
the story. The scene is in a madhouse.”
Mrs. Eyrecourt burst out with a coquettish little scream, and shook her
fan at the doctor. “No horrors!” she cried. “The bare idea of a madhouse
distracts me with terror. Oh, fie, fie! I won’t listen to you--I won’t
look at you--I positively refuse to be frightened out of my wits.
Matilda! wheel me away to the furthest end of the room. My vivid
imagination, Father Benwell, is my rock ahead in life. I declare I can
_smell_ the odious madhouse. Go straight to the window, Matilda; I want
to bury my nose among the flowers.”
Sir John, upon this, spoke for the first time. His language consisted
entirely of beginnings of sentences, mutely completed by a smile. “Upon
my word, you know. Eh, Doctor Wybrow? A man of your experience. Horrors
in madhouses. A lady in delicate health. No, really. Upon my honor, now,
I cannot. Something funny, oh yes. But such a subject, oh no.”
He rose to leave us. Dr. Wybrow gently stopped him. “I had a motive,
Sir John,” he said, “but I won’t trouble you with needless explanations.
There is a person, unknown to me, whom I want to discover. You are a
great deal in society when you are in London. May I ask if you have ever
met with a gentleman named Winterfield?”
I have always considered the power of self-control as one of the
strongest points in my character. For the future I shall be more humble.
When I heard that name, my surprise so completely mastered me that I sat
self-betrayed to Dr. Wybrow as the man who could answer his question.
In the meanwhile, Sir John took his time to consider, and discovered
that he had never heard of a person named Winterfield. Having
acknowledged his ignorance, in his own eloquent language, he drifted
away to the window-box in the next room, and gravely contemplated Mrs.
Eyrecourt, with her nose buried in flowers.
The doctor turned to me. “Am I wrong, Father Benwell, in supposing that
I had better have addressed myself to _you?”_
I admitted that I knew a gentleman named Winterfield.
Dr. Wybrow got up directly. “Have you a few minutes to spare?” he asked.
It is needless to say that I was at the doctor’s disposal. “My house is
close by, and my carriage is at the door,” he resumed. “When you feel
inclined to say good-by to our friend Mrs. Eyrecourt, I have something
to say to you which I think you ought to know.”
We took our departure at once. Mrs. Eyrecourt (leaving some of the color
of her nose among the flowers) patted me encouragingly with her fan, and
told the doctor that he was forgiven, on the understanding that he would
“never do it again.” In five minutes more we were in Dr. Wybrow’s study.
My watch tells me that I cannot hope to finish this letter by post time.
Accept what I have written thus far--and be assured that the conclusion
of my report shall follow a day later.
II.
The doctor began cautiously. “Winterfield is not a very common name,” he
said. “But it may not be amiss, Father Benwell, to discover, if we can,
whether _your_ Winterfield is the man of whom I am in search. Do you
only know him by name? or are you a friend of his?”
I answered, of course, that I was a friend.
Dr. Wybrow went on. “Will you pardon me if I venture on an indiscreet
question? When you are acquainted with the circumstances, I am sure you
will understand and excuse me. Are you aware of any--what shall I call
it?--any romantic incident in Mr. Winterfield’s past life?”
This time--feeling myself, in all probability, on the brink of
discovery--I was careful to preserve my composure. I said, quietly:
“Some such incident as you describe has occurred in Mr. Winterfield’s
past life.” There I stopped discreetly, and looked as if I knew all
about it.
The doctor showed no curiosity to hear more. “My object,” he went on,
“was merely to be reasonably sure that I was speaking to the right
person, in speaking to you. I may now tell you that I have no personal
interest in trying to discover Mr. Winterfield; I only act as the
representative of an old friend of mine. He is the proprietor of a
private asylum at Sandsworth--a man whose integrity is beyond dispute,
or he would not be my friend. You understand my motive in saying this?”
Proprietors of private asylums are, in these days, the objects of very
general distrust in England. I understood the doctor’s motive perfectly.
He proceeded. “Yesterday evening, my friend called upon me, and said
that he had a remarkable case in his house, which he believed would
interest me. The person to whom he alluded was a French boy, whose
mental powers had been imperfectly developed from his childhood. The
mischief had been aggravated, when he was about thirteen years old, by a
serious fright. When he was placed in my asylum, he was not idiotic, and
not dangerously mad--it was a case (not to use technical language) of
deficient intelligence, tending sometimes toward acts of unreasoning
mischief and petty theft, but never approaching to acts of downright
violence. My friend was especially interested in the lad--won his
confidence and affection by acts of kindness--and so improved his bodily
health as to justify some hope of also improving the state of his mind,
when a misfortune occurred which has altered the whole prospect. The
poor creature has fallen ill of a fever, and the fever has developed to
typhus. So far, there has been little to interest you--I am coming to
a remarkable event at last. At the stage of the fever when delirium
usually occurs in patients of sound mind, this crazy French boy has
become perfectly sane and reasonable!”
I looked at him, when he made this amazing assertion, with a momentary
doubt of his being in earnest. Doctor Wybrow understood me.
“Just what I thought, too, when I first heard it!” he said. “My friend
was neither offended nor surprised. After inviting me to go to his
house, and judge for myself, he referred me to a similar case, publicly
cited in the ‘Cornhill Magazine,’ for the month of April, 1879, in an
article entitled ‘Bodily Illness as a Mental Stimulant.’ The article is
published anonymously; but the character of the periodical in which
it appears is a sufficient guarantee of the trustworthiness of the
statement. I was so far influenced by the testimony thus cited, that I
drove to Sandsworth and examined the case myself.”
“Did the examination satisfy you?”
“Thoroughly. When I saw him last night, the poor boy was as sane as I
am. There is, however, a complication in this instance, which is not
mentioned in the case related in print. The boy appears to have entirely
forgotten every event in his past life, reckoning from the time when the
bodily illness brought with it the strange mental recovery which I have
mentioned to you.”
This was a disappointment. I had begun to hope for some coming result,
obtained by the lad’s confession.
“Is it quite correct to call him sane, when his memory is gone?” I
ventured to ask.
“In this case there is no necessity to enter into the question,” the
doctor answered. “The boy’s lapse of memory refers, as I told you, to
his past life--that is to say, his life when his intellect was deranged.
During the extraordinary interval of sanity that has now declared
itself, he is putting his mental powers to their first free use; and
none of them fail him, so far as I can see. His new memory (if I may
call it so) preserves the knowledge of what has happened since his
illness. You may imagine how this problem in brain disease interests
me; and you will not wonder that I am going back to Sandsworth tomorrow
afternoon, when I have done with my professional visits. But you may be
reasonably surprised at my troubling _you_ with details which are mainly
interesting to a medical man.”
Was he about to ask me to go with him to the asylum? I replied very
briefly, merely saying that the details were interesting to every
student of human nature. If he could have felt my pulse at that moment,
I am afraid he might have thought I was in a fair way of catching the
fever too.
“Prepare yourself,” he resumed, “for another surprising circumstance.
Mr. Winterfield is, by some incomprehensible accident, associated with
one of the mischievous tricks played by the French boy, before he
was placed under my friend’s care. There, at any rate, is the only
explanation by which we can account for the discovery of an envelope
(with inclosures) found sewn up in the lining of the lad’s waistcoat,
and directed to Mr. Winterfield--without any place of address.”
I leave you to imagine the effect which those words produced on me.
“Now,” said the doctor, “you will understand why I put such strange
questions to you. My friend and I are both hard-working men. We go very
little into society, as the phrase is; and neither he nor I had ever
heard the name of Winterfield. As a certain proportion of my patients
happen to be people with a large experience of society, I undertook to
make inquiries, so that the packet might be delivered, if possible, to
the right person. You heard how Mrs. Eyrecourt (surely a likely lady to
assist me?) received my unlucky reference to the madhouse; and you
saw how I puzzled Sir John. I consider myself most fortunate, Father
Benwell, in having had the honor of meeting you. Will you accompany me
to the asylum to-morrow? And can you add to the favor by bringing Mr.
Winterfield with you?”
This last request it was out of my power--really out of my power--to
grant. Winterfield had left London that morning on his visit to Paris.
His address there was, thus far, not known to me.
“Well, you must represent your friend,” the doctor said. “Time is
every way of importance in this case. Will you kindly call here at five
to-morrow afternoon?”
I was punctual to my appointment. We drove together to the asylum.
There is no need for me to trouble you with a narrative of what I
saw--favored by Doctor Wybrow’s introduction--at the French boy’s
bedside. It was simply a repetition of what I had already heard. There
he lay, at the height of the fever, asking, in the intervals of relief,
intelligent questions relating to the medicines administered to him; and
perfectly understanding the answers. He was only irritable when we asked
him to take his memory back to the time before his illness; and then he
answered in French, “I haven’t got a memory.”
But I have something else to tell you, which is deserving of your
best attention. The envelope and its inclosures (addressed to “Bernard
Winterfield, Esqre.”) are in my possession. The Christian name
sufficiently identifies the inscription with the Winterfield whom I
know.
The circumstances under which the discovery was made were related to me
by the proprietor of the asylum.
When the boy was brought to the house, two French ladies (his mother and
sister) accompanied him and mentioned what had been their own domestic
experience of the case. They described the wandering propensities which
took the lad away from home, and the odd concealment of his waistcoat,
on the last occasion when he had returned from one of his vagrant
outbreaks.
On his first night at the asylum, he became excited by finding himself
in a strange place. It was necessary to give him a composing draught. On
going to bed, he was purposely not prevented from hiding his waistcoat
under the pillow, as usual.
When the sedative had produced its effect, the attendant easily
possessed himself of the hidden garment. It was the plain duty of the
master of the house to make sure that nothing likely to be turned to
evil uses was concealed by a patient. The seal which had secured the
envelope was found, on examination, to have been broken.
“I would not have broken the seal myself,” our host added. “But, as
things were, I thought it my duty to look at the inclosures. They refer
to private affairs of Mr. Winterfield, in which he is deeply interested,
and they ought to have been long since placed in his possession. I
need hardly say that I consider myself bound to preserve the strictest
silence as to what I have read. An envelope, containing some blank
sheets of paper, was put back in the boy’s waistcoat, so that he might
feel it in its place under the lining, when he woke. The original
envelope and inclosures (with a statement of circumstances signed by my
assistant and myself) have been secured under another cover, sealed with
my own seal. I have done my best to discover Mr. Bernard Winterfield. He
appears not to live in London. At least I failed to find his name in the
Directory. I wrote next, mentioning what had happened, to the English
gentleman to whom I send reports of the lad’s health. He couldn’t help
me. A second letter to the French ladies only produced the same result.
I own I should be glad to get rid of my responsibility on honorable
terms.”
All this was said in the boy’s presence. He lay listening to it as if it
had been a story told of some one else. I could not resist the useless
desire to question him. Not speaking French myself (although I can read
the language), I asked Doctor Wybrow and his friend to interpret for me.
My questions led to nothing. The French boy knew no more about the
stolen envelope than I did.
There was no discoverable motive, mind, for suspecting him of
imposing on us. When I said, “Perhaps you stole it?” he answered quite
composedly, “Very likely; they tell me I have been mad; I don’t remember
it myself; but mad people do strange things.” I tried him again. “Or,
perhaps, you took it away out of mischief?” “Yes.” “And you broke the
seal, and looked at the papers?” “I dare say.” “And then you kept them
hidden, thinking they might be of some use to you? Or perhaps feeling
ashamed of what you had done, and meaning to restore them if you got
the opportunity?” “You know best, sir.” The same result followed when we
tried to find out where he had been, and what people had taken care of
him, during his last vagrant escape from home. It was a new revelation
to him that he had been anywhere. With evident interest, he applied to
us to tell him where he had wandered to, and what people he had seen!
So our last attempts at enlightenment ended. We came to the final
question of how to place the papers, with the least possible loss of
time, in Mr. Winterfield’s hands.
His absence in Paris having been mentioned, I stated plainly my own
position toward him at the present time.
“Mr. Winterfield has made an appointment with me to call at his hotel,
on his return to London,” I said. “I shall probably be the first
friend who sees him. If you will trust me with your sealed packet, in
consideration of these circumstances, I will give you a formal receipt
for it in Doctor Wybrow’s presence--and I will add any written
pledge that you may require on my part, acting as Mr. Winterfield’s
representative and friend. Perhaps you would like a reference as well?”
He made a courteous reply. “A friend of Dr. Wybrow’s,” he said,
“requires no other reference.”
“Excuse me,” I persisted. “I had the honor of meeting Doctor Wybrow, for
the first time, yesterday. Permit me to refer you to Lord Loring, who
has long known me as his spiritual director and friend.”
This account of myself settled the matter. I drew out the necessary
securities--and I have all the papers lying before me on my desk at this
moment.
You remember how seals were broken, and impressed again, at the Roman
post-office, in the revolutionary days when we were both young men?
Thanks to the knowledge then obtained, the extraordinary events which
once associated Mr. Winterfield and Miss Eyrecourt are at last plainly
revealed to me. Copies of the papers are in my possession, and the
originals are sealed again, with the crest of the proprietor of the
asylum, as if nothing had happened. I make no attempt to excuse myself.
You know our motto:--THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
I don’t propose to make any premature use of the information which
I have obtained. The first and foremost necessity, as I have already
reminded you, is to give Penrose the undisturbed opportunity of
completing the conversion of Romayne. During this interval, my copies of
the papers are at the disposal of my reverend brethren at headquarters.
*****
THE STOLEN PAPERS.--(COPIES.)
_Number One.--From Emma Winterfield to Bernard Winterfield._
4 Maidwell Buildings, Belhaven.
How shall I address you? Dear Bernard, or Sir? It doesn’t matter. I am
going to do one of the few good actions of my life: and familiarities or
formalities matter nothing to a woman who lies on her deathbed.
Yes--I have met with another accident. Shortly after the date of our
separation, you heard, I think, of the fall in the circus that fractured
my skull? On that occasion, a surgical operation, and a bit of silver
plate in place of the bone, put me right again. This time it has
been the kick of a horse, in the stables. Some internal injury is the
consequence. I may die to-morrow, or live till next week. Anyway--the
doctor has confessed it--my time has come.
Mind one thing. The drink--that vile habit which lost me your love and
banished me from your house--the drink is not to blame for this last
misfortune. Only the day before it happened I had taken the pledge,
under persuasion of the good rector here, the Reverend Mr. Fennick. It
is he who has brought me to make this confession, and who takes it down
in writing at my bedside. Do you remember how I once hated the very
name of a parson--and when you proposed, in joke, to marry me before
the registrar, how I took it in downright earnest, and kept you to your
word? We poor horse-riders and acrobats only knew clergymen as the worst
enemies we had--always using their influence to keep the people out of
our show, and the bread out of our mouths. If I had met with Mr. Fennick
in my younger days, what a different woman I might have been!
Well, regrets of that kind are useless now. I am truly sorry, Bernard,
for the evil that I have done to you; and I ask your pardon with a
contrite heart.
You will at least allow it in my favor that your drunken wife knew she
was unworthy of you. I refused to accept the allowance that you offered
to me. I respected your name. For seven years from the time of our
separation I returned to my profession under an assumed name and never
troubled you. The one thing I could not do was to forget you. If you
were infatuated by my unlucky beauty, I loved devotedly on my side.
The well-born gentleman who had sacrificed everything for my sake, was
something more than mortal in my estimation; he was--no! I won’t shock
the good man who writes this by saying what he was. Besides, what do you
care for my thoughts of you now?
If you had only been content to remain as I left you--or if I had not
found out that you were in love with Miss Eyrecourt, and were likely to
marry her, in the belief that death had released you from me--I should
have lived and died, doing you no other injury than the first great
injury of consenting to be your wife.
But I made the discovery--it doesn’t matter how. Our circus was in
Devonshire at the time. My jealous rage maddened me, and I had a wicked
admirer in a man who was old enough to be my father. I let him suppose
that the way to my favor lay through helping my revenge on the woman who
was about to take my place. He found the money to have you watched at
home and abroad; he put the false announcement of my death in the daily
newspapers, to complete your delusion; he baffled the inquiries made
through your lawyers to obtain positive proof of my death. And last, and
(in those wicked days) best service of all he took me to Brussels and
posted me at the door of the English church, so that your lawful wife
(with her marriage certificate in her hand) was the first person who
met you and the mock Mrs. Winterfield on your way from the altar to the
wedding breakfast.
I own it, to my shame. I triumphed in the mischief I had done.
But I had deserved to suffer; and I did suffer, when I heard that Miss
Eyrecourt’s mother and her two friends took her away from you--with her
own entire approval--at the church door, and restored her to society,
without a stain on her reputation. How the Brussels marriage was kept a
secret, I could not find out. And when I threatened them with exposure,
I got a lawyer’s letter, and was advised in my own interests to hold
my tongue. The rector has since told me that your marriage to Miss
Eyrecourt could be lawfully declared null and void, and that the
circumstances would excuse _you_, before any judge in England. I can now
well understand that people, with rank and money to help them, can avoid
exposure to which the poor, in their places, must submit.
One more duty (the last) still remains to be done.
I declare solemnly, on my deathbed, that you acted in perfect good faith
when you married Miss Eyrecourt. You have not only been a man cruelly
injured by me, but vilely insulted and misjudged by the two Eyrecourts,
and by the lord and lady who encouraged them to set you down as a
villain guilty of heartless and shameless deceit.
It is my conviction that these people might have done more than
misinterpret your honorable submission to the circumstances in which you
were placed. They might have prosecuted you for bigamy--if they could
have got me to appear against you. I am comforted when I remember that I
did make some small amends. I kept out of their way and yours, from that
day to this.
I am told that I owe it to you to leave proof of my death behind me.
When the doctor writes my certificate, he will mention the mark by which
I may be identified, if this reaches you (as I hope and believe it will)
between the time of my death and my burial. The rector, who will close
and seal these lines, as soon as the breath is out of my body, will add
what he can to identify me; and the landlady of this house is ready to
answer any questions that may be put to her. This time you may be
really assured that you are free. When I am buried, and they show you
my nameless grave in the churchyard, I know your kind heart--I die,
Bernard, in the firm belief that you will forgive me.
There was one thing more that I had to ask of you, relating to a poor
lost creature who is in the room with us at this moment. But, oh, I
am so weary! Mr. Fennick will tell you what it is. Say to yourself
sometimes--perhaps when you have married some lady who is worthy of
you--There was good as well as bad in poor Emma. Farewell.
_Number Two--From The Rev. Charles Fennick to Bernard Winterfield._
The Rectory, Belhaven.
Sir--It is my sad duty to inform you that Mrs. Emma Winterfield died
this morning, a little before five o’clock. I will add no comment of
mine to the touching language in which she has addressed you. God has,
I most sincerely believe, accepted the poor sinner’s repentance. Her
contrite spirit is at peace, among the forgiven ones in the world beyond
the grave.
In consideration of her wish that you should see her in death, the
coffin will be kept open until the last moment. The medical man in
attendance has kindly given me a copy of his certificate, which I
inclose. You will see that the remains are identified by the description
of a small silver plate on the right parietal bone of the skull.
I need hardly add that all the information I can give you is willingly
at your service.
She mentions, poor soul, something which she had to ask of you. I prefer
the request which, in her exhausted state, she was unable to address to
you in her own words.
While the performances of the circus were taking place in the next
county to ours, a wandering lad, evidently of deficient intelligence,
was discovered, trying to creep under the tent to see what was going
on. He could give no intelligible account of himself. The late Mrs.
Winterfield (who was born and brought up, as I understand, in France)
discovered that the boy was French, and felt interested in the
unfortunate creature, from former happy association with kind friends
of his nation. She took care of him from that time to the day of her
death--and he appeared to be gratefully attached to her.
I say “appeared,” because an inveterate reserve marks one of the
peculiarities of the mental affliction from which he suffers. Even his
benefactress never could persuade him to take her into his confidence.
In other respects, her influence (so far as I can learn) had been
successfully exerted in restraining certain mischievous propensities in
him, which occasionally showed themselves. The effect of her death has
been to intensify that reserve to which I have already alluded. He is
sullen and irritable--and the good landlady at the lodgings does not
disguise that she shrinks from taking care of him, even for a few days.
Until I hear from you, he will remain under the charge of my housekeeper
at the rectory.
You have, no doubt, anticipated the request which the poor sufferer
wished to address to you but a few hours before her death. She hoped
that you might be willing to place this friendless and helpless creature
under competent protection. Failing your assistance, I shall have no
alternative, however I may regret it, but to send him to the workhouse
of this town, on his way, probably, to the public asylum.
Believe me, sir, your faithful servant,
CHARLES FENNICK.
P.S.--I fear my letter and its inclosures may be delayed in reaching
you.
Yesterday evening, I had returned to my house, before it occurred to me
that Mrs. Winterfield had not mentioned your address. My only excuse
for this forgetfulness is, that I was very much distressed while I was
writing by her bedside. I at once went back to the lodgings, but she
had fallen asleep, and I dared not disturb her. This morning, when I
returned to the house, she was dead. There is an allusion to Devonshire
in her letter, which suggests that your residence may be in that county;
and I think she once spoke of you as a person of rank and fortune.
Having failed to find your name in a London Directory, I am now about
to search our free library here for a county history of Devon, on the
chance that it may assist me. Let me add, for your own satisfaction,
that no eyes but mine will see these papers. For security’s sake, I
shall seal them at once, and write your name on the envelope.
_Added by Father Benwell._
How the boy contrived to possess himself of the sealed packet we shall
probably never discover. Anyhow, we know that he must have escaped
from the rectory, with the papers in his possession, and that he did
certainly get back to his mother and sister in London.
With such complete information as I now have at my disposal, the
prospect is as clear again as we can desire. The separation of Romayne
from his wife, and the alteration of his will in favor of the Church,
seem to be now merely questions of time.
BOOK THE FOURTH.
CHAPTER I.
THE BREACH IS WIDENED.
A FORTNIGHT after Father Benwell’s discovery, Stella followed her
husband one morning into his study. “Have you heard from Mr. Penrose?”
she inquired.
“Yes. He will be here to-morrow.”
“To make a long visit?”
“I hope so. The longer the better.”
She looked at him with a mingled expression of surprise and reproach.
“Why do you say that?” she asked. “Why do you want him so much--when you
have got Me?”
Thus far, he had been sitting at his desk, resting his head on his hand,
with his downcast eyes fixed on an open book. When she put her last
question to him he suddenly looked up. Through the large window at his
side the morning light fell on his face. The haggard look of suffering,
which Stella remembered on the day when they met on the deck of the
steamboat, was again visible--not softened and chastened now by the
touching resignation of the bygone time, but intensified by the dogged
and despairing endurance of a man weary of himself and his life. Her
heart ached for him. She said, softly: “I don’t mean to reproach you.”
“Are you jealous of Penrose?” he asked, with a bitter smile.
She desperately told him the truth. “I am afraid of Penrose,” she
answered.
He eyed her with a strange expression of suspicious surprise. “Why are
you afraid of Penrose?”
It was no time to run the risk of irritating him. The torment of the
Voice had returned in the past night. The old gnawing remorse of the
fatal day of the duel had betrayed itself in the wild words that had
escaped him, when he sank into a broken slumber as the morning dawned.
Feeling the truest pity for him, she was still resolute to assert
herself against the coming interference of Penrose. She tried her ground
by a dangerous means--the means of an indirect reply.
“I think you might have told me,” she said, “that Mr. Penrose was a
Catholic priest.”
He looked down again at his book. “How did you know Penrose was a
Catholic priest?”
“I had only to look at the direction on your letters to him.”
“Well, and what is there to frighten you in his being a priest? You told
me at the Loring’s ball that you took an interest in Penrose because I
liked him.”
“I didn’t know then, Lewis, that he had concealed his profession from
us. I can’t help distrusting a man who does that.”
He laughed--not very kindly. “You might as well say you distrust a man
who conceals that he is an author, by writing an anonymous book. What
Penrose did, he did under orders from his superior--and, moreover, he
frankly owned to me that he was a priest. If you blame anybody, you had
better blame me for respecting his confidence.”
She drew back from him, hurt by the tone in which he spoke to her. “I
remember the time, Lewis,” she said, “when you would have been more
indulgent toward my errors--even if I am wrong.”
That simple appeal touched his better nature. “I don’t mean to be hard
on you, Stella,” he answered. “It is a little irritating to hear you say
that you distrust the most devoted and most affectionate friend that man
ever had. Why can’t I love my wife, and love my friend, too? You don’t
know, when I am trying to get on with my book, how I miss the help and
sympathy of Penrose. The very sound of his voice used to encourage me.
Come, Stella, give me a kiss--and let us, as the children say, make it
up!”
He rose from his writing-table. She met him more than half way, and
pressed all her love--and perhaps a little of her fear--on his lips.
He returned the kiss as warmly as it was given; and then, unhappily for
both of them, he went back to the subject.
“My own love,” he said, “try to like my friend for my sake; and be
tolerant of other forms of Christianity besides the form which happens
to be yours.”
Her smiling lips closed; she turned from him. With the sensitive
selfishness of a woman’s love, she looked on Penrose as a robber who had
stolen the sympathies which should have been wholly hers. As she moved
away, her quick observation noticed the open book on the desk, with
notes and lines in pencil on the margin of the page. What had Romayne
been reading which interested him in _that_ way? If he had remained
silent, she would have addressed the inquiry to him openly. But he was
hurt on his side by the sudden manner of her withdrawal from him. He
spoke--and his tone was colder than ever.
“I won’t attempt to combat your prejudices,” he said. “But one thing I
must seriously ask of you. When my friend Penrose comes here to-morrow,
don’t treat him as you treated Mr. Winterfield.”
There was a momentary paleness in her face which looked like fear, but
it passed away again. She confronted him firmly with steady eyes.
“Why do you refer again to that?” she asked. “Is--” (she hesitated
and recovered herself)--“Is Mr. Winterfield another devoted friend of
yours?”
He walked to the door, as if he could hardly trust his temper if he
answered her--stopped--and, thinking better of it, turned toward her
again.
“We won’t quarrel, Stella,” he rejoined; “I will only say I am sorry you
don’t appreciate my forbearance. Your reception of Mr. Winterfield has
lost me the friendship of a man whom I sincerely liked, and who might
have assisted my literary labors. You were ill at the time, and anxious
about Mrs. Eyrecourt. I respected your devotion to your mother. I
remembered your telling me, when you first went away to nurse her, that
your conscience accused you of having sometimes thoughtlessly neglected
your mother in her days of health and good spirits, and I admired the
motive of atonement which took you to her bedside. For those reasons
I shrank from saying a word that might wound you. But, because I was
silent, it is not the less true that you surprised and disappointed me.
Don’t do it again! Whatever you may privately think of Catholic priests,
I once more seriously request you not to let Penrose see it.”
He left the room.
She stood, looking after him as he closed the door, like a woman
thunderstruck. Never yet had he looked at her as he looked when he spoke
his last warning words. With a heavy sigh she roused herself. The
vague dread with which his tone rather than his words had inspired her,
strangely associated itself with the momentary curiosity which she had
felt on noticing the annotated book that lay on his desk.
She snatched up the volume and looked at the open page. It contained
the closing paragraphs of an eloquent attack on Protestantism, from the
Roman Catholic point of view. With trembling hands she turned back to
the title-page. It presented this written inscription: “To Lewis Romayne
from his attached friend and servant, Arthur Penrose.”
“God help me!” she said to herself; “the priest has got between us
already!”
CHAPTER II.
A CHRISTIAN JESUIT.
ON the next day Penrose arrived on his visit to Romayne.
The affectionate meeting between the two men tested Stella’s
self-control as it had never been tried yet. She submitted to the ordeal
with the courage of a woman whose happiness depended on her outward
graciousness of manner toward her husband’s friend. Her reception of
Penrose, viewed as an act of refined courtesy, was beyond reproach. When
she found her opportunity of leaving the room, Romayne gratefully opened
the door for her. “Thank you!” he whispered, with a look which was
intended to reward her.
She only bowed to him, and took refuge in her own room.
Even in trifles, a woman’s nature is degraded by the falsities of
language and manner which the artificial condition of modern society
exacts from her. When she yields herself to more serious deceptions,
intended to protect her dearest domestic interests, the mischief is
increased in proportion. Deceit, which is the natural weapon of defense
used by the weak creature against the strong, then ceases to be confined
within the limits assigned by the sense of self-respect and by the
restraints of education. A woman in this position will descend,
self-blinded, to acts of meanness which would be revolting to her if
they were related of another person.
Stella had already begun the process of self-degradation by writing
secretly to Winterfield. It was only to warn him of the danger of
trusting Father Benwell--but it was a letter, claiming him as her
accomplice in an act of deception. That morning she had received Penrose
with the outward cordialities of welcome which are offered to an old and
dear friend. And now, in the safe solitude of her room, she had fallen
to a lower depth still. She was deliberately considering the safest
means of acquainting herself with the confidential conversation which
Romayne and Penrose would certainly hold when she left them together.
“He will try to set my husband against me; and I have a right to know
what means he uses, in my own defense.” With that thought she reconciled
herself to an action which she would have despised if she had heard of
it as the action of another woman.
It was a beautiful autumn day, brightened by clear sunshine, enlivened
by crisp air. Stella put on her hat and went out for a stroll in the
grounds.
While she was within view from the windows of the servants’ offices
she walked away from the house. Turning the corner of a shrubbery, she
entered a winding path, on the other side, which led back to the lawn
under Romayne’s study window. Garden chairs were placed here and
there. She took one of them, and seated herself--after a last moment of
honorable hesitation--where she could hear the men’s voices through the
open window above her.
Penrose was speaking at the time.
“Yes. Father Benwell has granted me a holiday,” he said; “but I don’t
come here to be an idle man. You must allow me to employ my term of
leave in the pleasantest of all ways. I mean to be your secretary
again.”
Romayne sighed. “Ah, if you knew how I have missed you!”
(Stella waited, in breathless expectation, for what Penrose would say to
this. Would he speak of _her?_ No. There was a natural tact and delicacy
in him which waited for the husband to introduce the subject.)
Penrose only said, “How is the great work getting on?”
The answer was sternly spoken in one word--“Badly!”
“I am surprised to hear that, Romayne.”
“Why? Were you as innocently hopeful as I was? Did you expect my
experience of married life to help me in writing my book?”
Penrose replied after a pause, speaking a little sadly. “I expected your
married life to encourage you in all your highest aspirations,” he said.
(Stella turned pale with suppressed anger. He had spoken with perfect
sincerity. The unhappy woman believed that he lied, for the express
purpose of rousing irritation against her, in her husband’s irritable
mind. She listened anxiously for Romayne’s answer.)
He made no answer. Penrose changed the subject. “You are not looking
very well,” he gently resumed. “I am afraid your health has interfered
with your work. Have you had any return--?”
It was still one of the characteristics of Romayne’s nervous
irritability that he disliked to hear the terrible delusion of the Voice
referred to in words. “Yes,” he interposed bitterly, “I have heard it
again and again. My right hand is as red as ever, Penrose, with the
blood of a fellow-creature. Another destruction of my illusions when I
married!”
“Romayne! I don’t like to hear you speak of your marriage in that way.”
“Oh, very well. Let us go back to my book. Perhaps I shall get on better
with it now you are here to help me. My ambition to make a name in the
world has never taken so strong a hold on me (I don’t know why, unless
other disappointments have had something to do with it) as at this time,
when I find I can’t give my mind to my work. We will make a last effort
together, my friend! If it fails, we will put my manuscripts into the
fire, and I will try some other career. Politics are open to me. Through
politics, I might make my mark in diplomacy. There is something in
directing the destinies of nations wonderfully attractive to me in
my present state of feeling. I hate the idea of being indebted for my
position in the world, like the veriest fool living, to the accidents
of birth and fortune. Are _you_ content with the obscure life that you
lead? Did you not envy that priest (he is no older than I am) who was
sent the other day as the Pope’s ambassador to Portugal?”
Penrose spoke out at last without hesitation. “You are in a thoroughly
unwholesome state of mind,” he said.
Romayne laughed recklessly. “When was I ever in a healthy state of
mind?” he asked.
Penrose passed the interruption over without notice. “If I am to do you
any good,” he resumed, “I must know what is really the matter with you.
The very last question that I ought to put, and that I wish to put, is
the question which you force me to ask.”
“What is it?”
“When you speak of your married life,” said Penrose, “your tone is the
tone of a disappointed man. Have you any serious reason to complain of
Mrs. Romayne?”
(Stella rose to her feet, in her eagerness to hear what her husband’s
answer would be.)
“Serious reason?” Romayne repeated. “How can such an idea have entered
your head? I only complain of irritating trifles now and then. Even the
best of women is not perfect. It’s hard to expect it from any of them.”
(The interpretation of this reply depended entirely on the tone in which
it was spoken. What was the animating spirit in this case? Irony or
Indulgence? Stella was ignorant of the indirect methods of irritation,
by means of which Father Benwell had encouraged Romayne’s doubts of
his wife’s motive for the reception of Winterfield. Her husband’s tone,
expressing this state of mind, was new to her. She sat down again,
divided between hope and fear, waiting to hear more. The next words,
spoken by Penrose, astounded her. The priest, the Jesuit, the wily
spiritual intruder between man and wife, actually took the wife’s side!)
“Romayne,” he proceeded quietly, “I want you to be happy.”
“How am I to be happy?”
“I will try and tell you. I believe your wife to be a good woman. I
believe she loves you. There is something in her face that speaks for
her--even to an inexperienced person like myself. Don’t be impatient
with her! Put away from you that besetting temptation to speak in
irony--it is so easy to take that tone, and sometimes so cruel. I am
only a looker-on, I know. Domestic happiness can never be the
happiness of _my_ life. But I have observed my fellow-creatures of all
degrees--and this, I tell you, is the result. The largest number of
happy men are the husbands and fathers. Yes; I admit that they have
terrible anxieties--but they are fortified by unfailing compensations
and encouragements. Only the other day I met with a man who had suffered
the loss of fortune and, worse still, the loss of health. He endured
those afflictions so calmly that he surprised me. ‘What is the secret
of your philosophy?’ I asked. He answered, ‘I can bear anything while I
have my wife and my children.’ Think of that, and judge for yourself how
much happiness you may have left yet ungathered in your married life.”
(Those words touched Stella’s higher nature, as the dew touches the
thirsty ground. Surely they were nobly spoken! How would her husband
receive them?)
“I must think with your mind, Penrose, before I can do what you ask of
me. Is there any method of transformation by which I can change natures
with you?” That was all he said--and he said it despondingly.
Penrose understood, and felt for him.
“If there is anything in my nature, worthy to be set as an example
to you,” he replied, “you know to what blessed influence I owe
self-discipline and serenity of mind. Remember what I said when I left
you in London, to go back to my friendless life. I told you that I
found, in the Faith I held, the one sufficient consolation which helped
me to bear my lot. And--if there came a time of sorrow in the future--I
entreated you to remember what I had said. Have you remembered it?”
“Look at the book here on my desk--look at the other books, within easy
reach, on that table--are you satisfied?”
“More than satisfied. Tell me--do you feel nearer to an understanding of
the Faith to which I have tried to convert you?”
There was a pause. “Say that I do feel nearer,” Romayne resumed--“say
that some of my objections are removed--are you really as eager as ever
to make a Catholic of me, now that I am a married man?”
“I am even more eager,” Penrose answered. “I have always believed that
your one sure way to happiness lay through your conversion. Now, when
I know, from what I have seen and heard in this room, that you are not
reconciled, as you should be, to your new life, I am doubly confined in
my belief. As God is my witness, I speak sincerely. Hesitate no longer!
Be converted, and be happy.”
“Have you not forgotten something, Penrose?”
“What have I forgotten?”
“A serious consideration, perhaps. I have a Protestant wife.”
“I have borne that in mind, Romayne, throughout our conversation.”
“And you still say--what you have just said?”
“With my whole heart, I say it! Be converted, and be happy. Be happy,
and you will be a good husband. I speak in your wife ‘s interest as well
as in yours. People who are happy in each other’s society, will yield
a little on either side, even on questions of religious belief. And
perhaps there may follow a more profitable result still. So far as I
have observed, a good husband’s example is gladly followed by his wife.
Don’t think that I am trying to persuade you against your will! I am
only telling you, in my own justification, from what motives of love
for yourself, and of true interest in your welfare, I speak. You implied
just now that you had still some objections left. If I can remove
them--well and good. If I fail--if you cannot act on purely
conscientious conviction--I not only advise, I entreat you, to remain as
you are. I shall be the first to acknowledge that you have done right.”
(This moderation of tone would appeal irresistibly, as Stella well knew,
to her husband’s ready appreciation of those good qualities in others
which he did not himself possess. Once more her suspicion wronged
Penrose. Had he his own interested motives for pleading her cause?
At the bare thought of it, she left her chair and, standing under the
window, boldly interrupted the conversation by calling to Romayne.)
“Lewis!” she cried, “why do you stay indoors on this beautiful day? I am
sure Mr. Penrose would like a walk in the grounds.”
Penrose appeared alone at the window. “You are quite right, Mrs.
Romayne,” he said; “we will join you directly.”
In a few minutes he turned the corner of the house, and met Stella on
the lawn. Romayne was not with him. “Is my husband not coming with us?”
she asked. “He will follow us,” Penrose answered. “I believe he has some
letters to write.”
Stella looked at him, suspecting some underhand exercise of influence on
her husband.
If she had been able to estimate the noble qualities in the nature
of Penrose, she might have done him the justice to arrive at a truer
conclusion. It was he who had asked leave (when Stella had interrupted
them) to take the opportunity of speaking alone with Mrs. Romayne. He
had said to his friend, “If I am wrong in my anticipation of the
effect of your change of religion on your wife, let me find it out from
herself. My one object is to act justly toward you and toward her. I
should never forgive myself if I made mischief between you, no matter
how innocent of any evil intention I might be.” Romayne had understood
him. It was Stella’s misfortune ignorantly to misinterpret everything
that Penrose said or did, for the all-sufficient reason that he was
a Catholic priest. She had drawn the conclusion that her husband had
deliberately left her alone with Penrose, to be persuaded or deluded
into giving her sanction to aid the influence of the priest. “They shall
find they are mistaken,” she thought to herself.
“Have I interrupted an interesting conversation?” she inquired abruptly.
“When I asked you to come out, were you talking to my husband about his
historical work?”
“No, Mrs. Romayne; we were not speaking at that time of the book.”
“May I ask an odd question, Mr. Penrose?”
“Certainly!”
“Are you a very zealous Catholic?”
“Pardon me. I am a priest. Surely my profession speaks for me?”
“I hope you are not trying to convert my husband?”
Penrose stopped and looked at her attentively.
“Are you strongly opposed to your husband’s conversion?” he asked.
“As strongly,” she answered, “as a woman can be.”
“By religious conviction, Mrs. Romayne?”
“No. By experience.”
Penrose started. “Is it indiscreet,” he said gently, “to inquire what
your experience may have been?”
“I will tell you what my experience has been,” Stella replied. “I am
ignorant of theological subtleties, and questions of doctrine are quite
beyond me. But this I do know. A well-meaning and zealous Catholic
shortened my father’s life, and separated me from an only sister whom
I dearly loved. I see I shock you--and I daresay you think I am
exaggerating?”
“I hear what you say, Mrs. Romayne, with very great pain--I don’t
presume to form any opinion thus far.”
“My sad story can be told in a few words,” Stella proceeded. “When
my elder sister was still a young girl, an aunt of ours (my mother’s
sister) came to stay with us. She had married abroad, and she was, as
I have said, a zealous Catholic. Unknown to the rest of us, she held
conversations on religion with my sister--worked on the enthusiasm which
was part of the girl’s nature--and accomplished her conversion. Other
influences, of which I know nothing, were afterward brought to bear on
my sister. She declared her intention of entering a convent. As she
was under age, my father had only to interpose his authority to prevent
this. She was his favorite child. He had no heart to restrain her by
force--he could only try all that the kindest and best of fathers could
do to persuade her to remain at home. Even after the years that have
passed, I cannot trust myself to speak of it composedly. She persisted;
she was as hard as stone. My aunt, when she was entreated to interfere,
called her heartless obstinacy ‘a vocation.’ My poor father’s loving
resistance was worn out; he slowly drew nearer and nearer to death, from
the day when she left us. Let me do her justice, if I can. She has not
only never regretted entering the convent--she is so happily absorbed
in her religious duties that she has not the slightest wish to see her
mother or me. My mother’s patience was soon worn out. The last time I
went to the convent, I went by myself. I shall never go there again.
She could not conceal her sense of relief when I took my leave of her.
I need say no more. Arguments are thrown away on me, Mr. Penrose,
after what I have seen and felt. I have no right to expect that the
consideration of my happiness will influence you--but I may perhaps ask
you, as a gentleman, to tell me the truth. Do you come here with the
purpose of converting my husband?”
Penrose owned the truth, without an instant’s hesitation.
“I cannot take your view of your sister’s pious devotion of herself to
a religious life,” he said. “But I can, and will, answer you truly. From
the time when I first knew him, my dearest object has been to convert
your husband to the Catholic Faith.”
Stella drew back from him, as if he had stung her, and clasped her hands
in silent despair.
“But I am bound as a Christian,” he went on, “to do to others as I would
they should do to me.”
She turned on him suddenly, her beautiful face radiant with hope, her
hand trembling as it caught him by the arm.
“Speak plainly!” she cried.
He obeyed her to the letter.
“The happiness of my friend’s wife, Mrs. Romayne, is sacred to me
for his sake. Be the good angel of your husband’s life. I abandon the
purpose of converting him.”
He lifted her hand from his arm and raised it respectfully to his lips.
Then, when he had bound himself by a promise that was sacred to him,
the terrible influence of the priesthood shook even that brave and lofty
soul. He said to himself, as he left her, “God forgive me if I have done
wrong!”
CHAPTER III.
WINTERFIELD RETURNS.
TWICE Father Benwell called at Derwent’s Hotel, and twice he was
informed that no news had been received there of Mr. Winterfield. At the
third attempt, his constancy was rewarded. Mr. Winterfield had written,
and was expected to arrive at the hotel by five o’clock.
It was then half-past four. Father Benwell decided to await the return
of his friend.
He was as anxious to deliver the papers which the proprietor of the
asylum had confided to him, as if he had never broken a seal or used a
counterfeit to hide the betrayal of a trust. The re-sealed packet
was safe in the pocket of his long black frockcoat. His own future
proceedings depended, in some degree, on the course which Winterfield
might take, when he had read the confession of the unhappy woman who had
once been his wife.
Would he show the letter to Stella, at a private interview, as an
unanswerable proof that she had cruelly wronged him? And would it
in this case be desirable--if the thing could be done--so to handle
circumstances as that Romayne might be present, unseen, and might
discover the truth for himself? In the other event--that is to say, if
Winterfield abstained from communicating the confession to Stella--the
responsibility of making the necessary disclosure must remain with the
priest.
Father Benwell walked softly up and down the room, looking about him
with quietly-observant eye. A side table in a corner was covered with
letters, waiting Winterfield’s return. Always ready for information of
any sort, he even looked at the addresses on the letters.
The handwritings presented the customary variety of character. All but
three of the envelopes showed the London district postmarks. Two of
the other letters (addressed to Winterfield at his club) bore foreign
postmarks; and one, as the altered direction showed, had been forward
from Beaupark House to the hotel.
This last letter especially attracted the priest’s attention.
The address was apparently in a woman’s handwriting. And it was worthy
of remark that she appeared to be the only person among Winterfield’s
correspondents who was not acquainted with the address of his hotel or
of his club. Who could the person be? The subtly inquiring intellect
of Father Benwell amused itself by speculating even on such a trifling
problem as this. He little thought that he had a personal interest in
the letter. The envelope contained Stella’s warning to Winterfield to
distrust no less a person than Father Benwell himself!
It was nearly half-past five before quick footsteps were audible
outside. Winterfield entered the room.
“This is friendly indeed!” he said. “I expected to return to the worst
of all solitudes--solitude in a hotel. You will stay and dine with me?
That’s right. You must have thought I was going to settle in Paris. Do
you know what has kept me so long? The most delightful theater in the
world--the Opera Comique. I am so fond of the bygone school of music,
Father Benwell--the flowing graceful delicious melodies of the composers
who followed Mozart. One can only enjoy that music in Paris. Would you
believe that I waited a week to hear Nicolo’s delightful Joconde for the
second time. I was almost the only young man in the stalls. All round
me were the old men who remembered the first performances of the
opera, beating time with their wrinkled hands to the tunes which were
associated with the happiest days of their lives. What’s that I hear? My
dog! I was obliged to leave him here, and he knows I have come back!”
He flew to the door and called down the stairs to have the dog set
free. The spaniel rushed into the room and leaped into his master’s
outstretched arms. Winterfield returned his caresses, and kisses him as
tenderly as a woman might have kissed her pet.
“Dear old fellow! it’s a shame to have left you--I won’t do it again.
Father Benwell, have you many friends who would be as glad to see you as
_this_ friend? I haven’t one. And there are fools who talk of a dog as
an inferior being to ourselves! _This_ creature’s faithful love is mine,
do what I may. I might be disgraced in the estimation of every human
creature I know, and he would be as true to me as ever. And look at his
physical qualities. What an ugly thing, for instance--I won’t say your
ear--I will say, my ear is; crumpled and wrinkled and naked. Look at the
beautiful silky covering of _his_ ear! What are our senses of smelling
and hearing compared to his? We are proud of our reason. Could we find
our way back, if they shut us up in a basket, and took us to a strange
place away from home? If we both want to run downstairs in a hurry,
which of us is securest against breaking his neck--I on my poor two
legs, or he on his four? Who is the happy mortal who goes to bed without
unbuttoning, and gets up again without buttoning? Here he is, on my lap,
knowing I am talking about him, and too fond of me to say to himself,
‘What a fool my master is!’”
Father Benwell listened to this rhapsody--so characteristic of the
childish simplicity of the man--with an inward sense of impatience,
which never once showed itself on the smiling surface of his face.
He had decided not to mention the papers in his pocket until some
circumstance occurred which might appear to remind him naturally that
he had such things about him. If he showed any anxiety to produce
the envelope, he might expose himself to the suspicion of having some
knowledge of the contents. When would Winterfield notice the side table,
and open his letters?
The tick-tick of the clock on the mantel-piece steadily registered the
progress of time, and Winterfield’s fantastic attentions were still
lavished on his dog.
Even Father Benwell’s patience was sorely tried when the good country
gentleman proceeded to mention not only the spaniel’s name, but the
occasion which had suggested it. “We call him Traveler, and I will
tell you why. When he was only a puppy he strayed into the garden at
Beaupark, so weary and footsore that we concluded he had come to us from
a great distance. We advertised him, but he was never claimed--and here
he is! If you don’t object, we will give Traveler a treat to-day. He
shall have dinner with us.”
Perfectly understanding those last words, the dog jumped off his
master’s lap, and actually forwarded the views of Father Benwell in
less than a minute more. Scampering round and round the room, as an
appropriate expression of happiness, he came into collision with the
side table and directed Winterfield’s attention to the letters by
scattering them on the floor.
Father Benwell rose politely, to assist in picking up the prostrate
correspondence. But Traveler was beforehand with him. Warning the
priest, with a low growl, not to interfere with another person’s
business, the dog picked up the letters in his mouth, and carried
them by installments to his master’s feet. Even then, the exasperating
Winterfield went no further than patting Traveler. Father Benwell’s
endurance reached its limits. “Pray don’t stand on ceremony with me,” he
said. “I will look at the newspaper while you read your letters.”
Winterfield carelessly gathered the letters together, tossed them on the
dining table at his side, and took the uppermost one of the little heap.
Fate was certainly against the priest on that evening. The first letter
that Winterfield opened led him off to another subject of conversation
before he had read it to the end. Father Benwell’s hand, already in his
coat pocket, appeared again--empty.
“Here’s a proposal to me to go into Parliament,” said the Squire. “What
do you think of representative institutions, Father Benwell? To my mind,
representative institutions are on their last legs. Honorable Members
vote away more of our money every year. They have no alternative between
suspending liberty of speech, or sitting helpless while half a dozen
impudent idiots stop the progress of legislation from motives of the
meanest kind. And they are not even sensitive enough to the national
honor to pass a social law among themselves which makes it as
disgraceful in a gentleman to buy a seat by bribery as to cheat at
cards. I declare I think the card-sharper the least degraded person of
the two. _He_ doesn’t encourage his inferiors to be false to a public
trust. In short, my dear sir, everything wears out in this world--and
why should the House of Commons be an exception to the rule?”
He picked up the next letter from the heap. As he looked at the address,
his face changed. The smile left his lips, the gayety died out of his
eyes. Traveler, entreating for more notice with impatient forepaws
applied to his master’s knees, saw the alteration, and dropped into a
respectfully recumbent position. Father Benwell glanced sidelong off the
columns of the newspaper, and waited for events with all the discretion,
and none of the good faith, of the dog.
“Forwarded from Beaupark,” Winterfield said to himself. He opened the
letter--read it carefully to the end--thought over it--and read it
again.
“Father Benwell!” he said suddenly.
The priest put down the newspaper. For a few moments more nothing was
audible but the steady tick-tick of the clock.
“We have not been very long acquainted,” Winterfield resumed. “But our
association has been a pleasant one, and I think I owe to you the duty
of a friend. I don’t belong to your Church; but I hope you will believe
me when I say that ignorant prejudice against the Catholic priesthood is
not one of _my_ prejudices.”
Father Benwell bowed, in silence.
“You are mentioned,” Winterfield proceeded, “in the letter which I have
just read.”
“Are you at liberty to tell me the name of your correspondent?” Father
Benwell asked.
“I am not at liberty to do that. But I think it due to you, and to
myself, to tell you what the substance of the letter is. The writer
warns me to be careful in my intercourse with you. Your object (I am
told) is to make yourself acquainted with events in my past life, and
you have some motive which my correspondent has thus far failed to
discover. I speak plainly, but I beg you to understand that I also speak
impartially. I condemn no man unheard--least of all, a man whom I have
had the honor of receiving under my own roof.”
He spoke with a certain simple dignity. With equal dignity, Father
Benwell answered. It is needless to say that he now knew Winterfield’s
correspondent to be Romayne’s wife.
“Let me sincerely thank you, Mr. Winterfield, for a candor which does
honor to us both,” he said. “You will hardly expect me--if I may
use such an expression--to condescend to justify myself against an
accusation which is an anonymous accusation so far as I am concerned.
I prefer to meet that letter by a plain proof; and I leave you to judge
whether I am still worthy of the friendship to which you have so kindly
alluded.”
With this preface he briefly related the circumstances under which
he had become possessed of the packet, and then handed it to
Winterfield--with the seal uppermost.
“Decide for yourself,” he concluded, “whether a man bent on prying into
your private affairs, with that letter entirely at his mercy, would have
been true to the trust reposed in him.”
He rose and took his hat, ready to leave the room, if his honor was
profaned by the slightest expression of distrust. Winterfield’s
genial and unsuspicious nature instantly accepted the offered proof as
conclusive. “Before I break the seal,” he said, “let me do you justice.
Sit down again, Father Benwell, and forgive me if my sense of duty has
hurried me into hurting your feelings. No man ought to know better than
I do how often people misjudge and wrong each other.”
They shook hands cordially. No moral relief is more eagerly sought than
relief from the pressure of a serious explanation. By common consent,
they now spoke as lightly as if nothing had happened. Father Benwell set
the example.
“You actually believe in a priest!” he said gayly. “We shall make a good
Catholic of you yet.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Winterfield replied, with a touch of
his quaint humor. “I respect the men who have given to humanity the
inestimable blessing of quinine--to say nothing of preserving learning
and civilization--but I respect still more my own liberty as a free
Christian.”
“Perhaps a free thinker, Mr. Winterfield?”
“Anything you like to call it, Father Benwell, so long as it _is_ free.”
They both laughed. Father Benwell went back to his newspaper.
Winterfield broke the seal of the envelope and took out the inclosures.
The confession was the first of the papers at which he happened to look.
At the opening lines he turned pale. He read more, and his eyes filled
with tears. In low broken tones he said to the priest, “You have
innocently brought me most distressing news. I entreat your pardon if I
ask to be left alone.”
Father Benwell said a few well-chosen words of sympathy, and immediately
withdrew. The dog licked his master’s hand, hanging listlessly over the
arm of the chair.
Later in the evening, a note from Winterfield was left by messenger at
the priest’s lodgings. The writer announced, with renewed expressions of
regret, that he would be again absent from London on the next day,
but that he hoped to return to the hotel and receive his guest on the
evening of the day after.
Father Benwell rightly conjectured that Winterfield’s destination was
the town in which his wife had died.
His object in taking the journey was not, as the priest supposed, to
address inquiries to the rector and the landlady, who had been present
at the fatal illness and the death--but to justify his wife’s last
expression of belief in the mercy and compassion of the man whom she had
injured. On that “nameless grave,” so sadly and so humbly referred to in
the confession, he had resolved to place a simple stone cross, giving to
her memory the name which she had shrunk from profaning in her lifetime.
When he had written the brief inscription which recorded the death of
“Emma, wife of Bernard Winterfield,” and when he had knelt for a while
by the low turf mound, his errand had come to its end. He thanked the
good rector; he left gifts with the landlady and her children, by which
he was gratefully remembered for many a year afterward; and then, with a
heart relieved, he went back to London.
Other men might have made their sad little pilgrimage alone. Winterfield
took his dog with him. “I must have something to love,” he said to the
rector, “at such a time as this.”
CHAPTER IV.
FATHER BENWELL’S CORRESPONDENCE.
_To the Secretary, S. J., Rome._
WHEN I wrote last, I hardly thought I should trouble you again so soon.
The necessity has, however, arisen. I must ask for instructions, from
our Most Reverend General, on the subject of Arthur Penrose.
I believe that I informed you that I decided to defer my next visit to
Ten Acres Lodge for two or three days, in order that Winterfield (if
he intended to do so) might have time to communicate with Mrs.
Romayne, after his return from the country. Naturally enough, perhaps,
considering the delicacy of the subject, he has not taken me into his
confidence. I can only guess that he has maintained the same reserve
with Mrs. Romayne.
My visit to the Lodge was duly paid this afternoon.
I asked first, of course, for the lady of the house, and hearing she was
in the grounds, joined her there. She looked ill and anxious, and she
received me with rigid politeness. Fortunately, Mrs. Eyrecourt (now
convalescent) was staying at Ten Acres, and was then taking the air
in her chair on wheels. The good lady’s nimble and discursive tongue
offered me an opportunity of referring, in the most innocent manner
possible, to Winterfield’s favorable opinion of Romayne’s pictures. I
need hardly say that I looked at Romayne’s wife when I mentioned the
name. She turned pale--probably fearing that I had some knowledge of
her letter warning Winterfield not to trust me. If she had already been
informed that he was not to be blamed, but to be pitied, in the matter
of the marriage at Brussels, she would have turned red. Such, at least,
is my experience, drawn from recollections of other days. *
The ladies having served my purpose, I ventured into the house, to pay
my respects to Romayne.
He was in the study, and his excellent friend and secretary was with
him. After the first greetings Penrose left us. His manner told me
plainly that there was something wrong. I asked no questions--waiting on
the chance that Romayne might enlighten me.
“I hope you are in better spirits, now that you have your old companion
with you,” I said.
“I am very glad to have Penrose with me,” he answered. And then he
frowned and looked out of the window at the two ladies in the grounds.
It occurred to me that Mrs. Eyrecourt might be occupying the customary
false position of a mother-in-law. I was mistaken. He was not thinking
of his wife’s mother--he was thinking of his wife.
“I suppose you know that Penrose had an idea of converting me?” he said,
suddenly.
I was perfectly candid with him--I said I knew it, and approved of it.
“May I hope that Arthur has succeeded in convincing you?” I ventured to
add.
“He might have succeeded, Father Benwell, if he had chosen to go on.”
This reply, as you may easily imagine, took me by surprise.
“Are you really so obdurate that Arthur despairs of your conversion?” I
asked.
“Nothing of the sort! I have thought and thought of it--and I can tell
you I was more than ready to meet him half way.”
“Then where is the obstacle?” I exclaimed.
He pointed through the window to his wife. “There is the obstacle,” he
said, in a tone of ironical resignation.
Knowing Arthur’s character as I knew it, I at last understood what had
happened. For a moment I felt really angry. Under these circumstances,
the wise course was to say nothing, until I could be sure of speaking
with exemplary moderation. It doesn’t do for a man in my position to
show anger.
Romayne went on.
“We talked of my wife, Father Benwell, the last time you were here. You
only knew, then, that her reception of Mr. Winterfield had determined
him never to enter my house again. By way of adding to your information
on the subject of ‘petticoat government,’ I may now tell you that Mrs.
Romayne has forbidden Penrose to proceed with the attempt to convert
me. By common consent, the subject is never mentioned between us.”
The bitter irony of his tone, thus far, suddenly disappeared. He spoke
eagerly and anxiously. “I hope you are not angry with Arthur?” he said.
By this time my little fit of ill-temper was at an end. I answered--and
it was really in a certain sense true--“I know Arthur too well to be
angry with him.”
Romayne seemed to be relieved. “I only troubled you with this last
domestic incident,” he resumed, “to bespeak your indulgence for Penrose.
I am getting learned in the hierarchy of the Church, Father Benwell! You
are the superior of my dear little friend, and you exercise authority
over him. Oh, he is the kindest and best of men! It is not his fault.
He submits to Mrs. Romayne--against his own better conviction--in the
honest belief that he consults the interests of our married life.”
I don’t think I misinterpret the state of Romayne’s mind, and mislead
you, when I express my belief that this second indiscreet interference
of his wife between his friend and himself will produce the very result
which she dreads. Mark my words, written after the closest observation
of him--this new irritation of Romayne’s sensitive self-respect will
hasten his conversion.
You will understand that the one alternative before me, after what
has happened, is to fill the place from which Penrose has withdrawn. I
abstained from breathing a word of this to Romayne. It is he, if I can
manage it, who must invite me to complete the work of conversion--and,
besides, nothing can be done until the visit of Penrose has come to an
end. Romayne’s secret sense of irritation may be safely left to develop
itself, with time to help it.
I changed the conversation to the subject of his literary labors.
The present state of his mind is not favorable to work of that exacting
kind. Even with the help of Penrose to encourage him, he does not get on
to his satisfaction--and yet, as I could plainly perceive, the ambition
to make a name in the world exercises a stronger influence over him than
ever. All in our favor, my reverend friend--all in our favor!
I took the liberty of asking to see Penrose alone for a moment; and,
this request granted, Romayne and I parted cordially. I can make most
people like me, when I choose to try. The master of Vange Abbey is no
exception to the rule. Did I tell you, by-the-by, that the property has
a little declined of late in value? It is now not worth more than six
thousand a year. _We_ will improve it when it returns to the Church.
My interview with Penrose was over in two minutes. Dispensing with
formality, I took his arm, and led him into the front garden.
“I have heard all about it,” I said; “and I must not deny that you have
disappointed me. But I know your disposition, and I make allowances. You
have qualities, dear Arthur, which perhaps put you a little out of place
among us. I shall be obliged to report what you have done--but you may
trust me to put it favorably. Shake hands, my son, and, while we are
still together, let us be as good friends as ever.”
You may think that I spoke in this way with a view to my indulgent
language being repeated to Romayne, and so improving the position which
I have already gained in his estimation. Do you know, I really believe
I meant it at the time! The poor fellow gratefully kissed my hand when I
offered it to him--he was not able to speak. I wonder whether I am weak
about Arthur? Say a kind word for him, when his conduct comes under
notice--but pray don’t mention this little frailty of mine; and don’t
suppose I have any sympathy with his weak-minded submission to Mrs.
Romayne’s prejudices. If I ever felt the smallest consideration for
_her_ (and I cannot call to mind any amiable emotion of that sort), her
letter to Winterfield would have effectually extinguished it. There is
something quite revolting to me in a deceitful woman.
In closing this letter, I may quiet the minds of our reverend brethren,
if I assure them that my former objection to associating myself directly
with the conversion of Romayne no longer exists.
Yes! even at my age, and with my habits, I am now resigned to hearing,
and confuting, the trivial arguments of a man who is young enough to
be my son. I shall write a carefully-guarded letter to Romayne, on the
departure of Penrose; and I shall send him a book to read, from
the influence of which I expect gratifying results. It is not a
controversial work (Arthur has been beforehand with me there)--it is
Wiseman’s “Recollections of the Popes.” I look to that essentially
readable book to excite Romayne’s imagination, by vivid descriptions
of the splendors of the Church, and the vast influence and power of the
higher priesthood. Does this sudden enthusiasm of mine surprise you? And
are you altogether at a loss to know what it means?
It means, my friend, that I see our position toward Romayne in a new
light. Forgive me, if I say no more for the present. I prefer to be
silent, until my audacity is justified by events.
* Father Benwell’s experience had, in this case, not misled
him. If Stella had remained unmarried, Winterfield might have
justified himself. But he was honorably unwilling to disturb her
relations with her husband, by satisfying her that he had never
been unworthy of the affection which had once united them.
CHAPTER V.
BERNARD WINTERFIELD’S CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
_From Mrs. Romayne to Mr. Winterfield._
HAS my letter failed to reach you? I directed it (as I direct this) to
Beaupark, not knowing your London address.
Yesterday, Father Benwell called at Ten Acres Lodge. He first saw my
mother and myself and he contrived to mention your name. It was done
with his usual adroitness, and I might perhaps have passed it over if
he had not looked at me. I hope and pray it may be only my fancy--but
I thought I saw, in his eyes, that he was conscious of having me in his
power, and that he might betray me to my husband at any moment.
I have no sort of claim on you. And, Heaven knows, I have little
reason to trust you. But I thought you meant fairly by me when we spoke
together at this house. In that belief, I entreat you to tell me if
Father Benwell has intruded himself into your confidence--or even if you
have hinted anything to him which gives him a hold over me.
II.
_From Mr. Winterfield to Mrs. Romayne._
Both your letters have reached me.
I have good reason for believing that you are entirely mistaken in your
estimate of Father Benwell’s character. But I know, by sad experience,
how you hold to your opinions when they are once formed; and I am eager
to relieve you of all anxiety, so far as I am concerned. I have not
said one word--I have not even let slip the slightest hint--which could
inform Father Benwell of that past event in our lives to which your
letter alludes. Your secret is a sacred secret to me; and it has been,
and shall be, sacredly kept.
There is a sentence in your letter which has given me great pain. You
reiterate the cruel language of the bygone time. You say, “Heaven knows
I have little reason to trust you.”