The Vicar of Maylands, the Reverend Ambrose Yule, was in his study
writing his monthly contribution to the _Northern Ecclesiastical
Review_. He was interested in his subject--"Our Sinful Sundays"--and his
thoughts flowed smoothly on the topic of drink, frivolous talk and open
kinematograph theatres. He wrote quickly and fluently in his neat small
handwriting. A knock at the door interrupted him.
"Yes? What is it?" he asked somewhat impatiently.
"A lady to see you, sir," said Parrot, the comely maid.
"A lady? Who is it? I thought every one knew that I do not receive
today."
"It is one of the foreign ladies staying with Mrs. Whitaker, sir."
"Oh, well. Show her into the drawing-room, and tell your mistress."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but----" a smile flickered over Parrot's mild
face--"she asked specially for you. She said she wished to speak to 'Mr.
the Clergyman' himself. First she said, 'Mr. the Cury' and then she
said, 'Mr. the Clergyman.'"
"Well," sighed the vicar, "show her in." He placed a paper-weight on his
neatly written sheets, rose and awaited his visitor standing on the
hearthrug with his back to the fire.
Parrot ushered in a tall figure in black and then withdrew. The vicar
stepped forward and found himself gazing into the depths of two
resplendent dark eyes set in a very white face.
"Pray sit down," he said, "and tell me in what way I can be of service
to you."
"May I speak French?" asked the lady in a low voice.
"_Mais certainement, Madame_," said the courtly clergyman, who twenty or
thirty years ago had studied Sinful Sundays abroad with intelligence and
attention.
The lady sat down and was silent. She wore black cotton gloves and held
in her hands a small handkerchief, which she clutched and crumpled
nervously into a little ball.
The kindly vicar with his head on one side waited a little while and
then spoke. "You are staying in Maylands? In Mrs. Whitaker's house, I
believe? Have I not seen you, with two young girls?"
"Yes. My daughter and my sister-in-law." Louise's voice was so low that
he had to bend forward to catch her words.
"Indeed. Yes." The vicar joined his finger-tips together, then
disjoined them, then clapped them lightly together, waiting for further
enlightenment. As it was not forthcoming he inquired: "May I know your
name, Madame?"
"Louise Brandès."
"And ... er--monsieur your husband----?" the vicar's face was
interrogative and prepared for sympathy.
"He is wounded, in hospital, at Dunkirk."
"Sad, sad," said the vicar, gently shaking his handsome grey head.
"And ... you wish me to help you to go and see him?"
"No!" Louise uttered the word like a cry. Sudden tears welled up into
her eyes, rolled rapidly down her cheeks and dropped upon her folded
hands in their black cotton gloves.
"_Alors?_ ..." interrogated the vicar, with his head still more on one
side.
Louise raised her dark lashes and looked at the kind handsome face
before her, looked at the narrow benevolent forehead, the firm straight
lips, the beautiful hands (the vicar knew they were beautiful hands)
with the finger-tips lightly pressed together. Instinctively she felt
that here she would find no help. She knew that if she asked for pity,
for protection, for money, it would be given her. But she also knew that
what she was about to crave would meet with a stern repulse.
She had made up her mind that this was to be her last appeal for help,
her last effort to obtain release. He was the priest, he was the
representative of the All-Merciful....
She made the sign of the cross, she dropped on her knees and grasped his
hand. "_Mon pere_," she said--thus she used to address the Curé of
Bomal, butchered on that never-to-be-forgotten night. "I will tell
you----"
The vicar withdrew his hand from her grasp. "I beg you, madam, not to
address me in that way. Also pray rise from your knees and take a seat."
Ah me! how melodramatic were the Latin races! Poor woman! as if all this
were necessary in order, probably, to ask for a few pounds, or to say
that she could not get on with the peppery Mrs. Whitaker.
Louise had blushed crimson and risen quickly to her feet. "I am sorry,"
she said.
And then the kind vicar blushed too and felt that he had behaved like a
brute.
At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Yule entered the room. With her
was Dr. Reynolds, carrying a black leather bag.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Yule, catching sight of Louise. "I am sorry,
Ambrose. I did not know you had a visitor."
"All right, dear," said the vicar; "this is Madame Brandès, who is
staying with the Whitakers. She wants to consult me on some personal
matter." Then he turned to Dr. Reynolds. "Well, doctor; how do you find
our boy?"
"Quite all right. Quite all right," said the doctor. "We shall have him
up and playing football again in no time. It is nothing but a strained
tendon. Absolutely nothing at all."
Mrs. Yule had gone towards Louise with outstretched hand. "How do you
do? I am glad to meet you," she said cordially. "You will stay for tea
with us, I hope. My daughter, too, will be so pleased to see you.
Not"--she added, with a little break in her voice--"that she really can
see you. Perhaps you have heard that my dear daughter is blind."
"Blind!" Like a tidal wave the sorrow of the world seemed to overwhelm
Louise. She felt that the sadness of life was too great to be borne.
"Blind," she said. Then she covered her face and burst into tears.
Mrs. Yule's maternal heart melted; her maternal eyes noted the broken
attitude, the tell-tale line of the figure! she stepped quickly forward,
holding out both her hands.
"Come, my dear; sit down. Will you let me take your hat off? This
English weather is so trying if one is not used to it," murmured Mrs.
Yule with Anglo-Saxon shyness before the stranger's unexpected display
of feeling, while the two men turned away and talked together near the
window. Mrs. Yule pressed Louise's black-gloved hand in hers. What
though this outburst were due, as it probably was, to the woman's
condition, to her overwrought nerves, or to who knows what grief and
misery of her own? The fact remained--and Mrs. Yule never forgot
it--that this storm of tears was evoked by the news of her dear child's
affliction. Mrs. Yule's heart was touched.
"You are Belgian, I know," she said in French, sitting down beside
Louise and taking one of the black-gloved hands in her own. "I myself
was at school in Brussels." And indeed her French was perfect, with just
a little touch of Walloon closing the vowels in some of her words. "I
would have called on you long ago--I would have asked you to make
friends with my daughter whose affliction has so distressed your kind
heart; but as you may have heard, my boy met with an accident, and I
have not left the house for many days.... Do wait a moment, Dr.
Reynolds," she added as the doctor approached to bid her good-bye. And
turning to Louise she introduced him to her as "the kindest of friends
and the best of doctors."
"We have met," said Dr. Reynolds, shaking hands with Louise and looking
keenly into her face with his piercing, short-sighted eyes. "Madame
Brandès's little daughter," he added, turning to Mrs. Yule, "is a
patient of mine." There was a moment's silence; then the doctor,
turning to the vicar, added in a lower voice: "It seems that their home
was invaded, and the child terribly frightened. It is a very sad case.
She has lost her reason and her power of speech."
Mrs. Yule in her turn was deeply moved and quick tears of sympathy
gathered in her eyes. With an impulse of tenderest pity she bent
suddenly forward and kissed the exile's pale cheek.
Like a flash of lightning in the night, it was revealed to Louise that
now or never she must make her confession, now or never attempt a
supreme, ultimate effort. This must be her last struggle for life. As
she looked from Mrs. Yule's kind, tear-filled eyes to the calm, keen
face of the physician hope bounded within her like a living thing. The
blood rushed to her cheeks and she rose to her feet.
"Doctor!..." she gasped. Then she turned to Mrs. Yule again, it seemed
almost easier to say what must be said, to a woman. "I want to say
something.... I must speak...." And again turning to the doctor--"Do you
understand me if I speak French?"
Doctor Reynolds looked rather like a timid schoolboy, notwithstanding
his spectacles and his red beard, as he replied: "Oh ... _oui, Madame.
Je comprong._"
The vicar stepped forward. Looking from Louise to his wife and to the
doctor he said: "Perhaps I had better leave you...."
But Louise quickly extended a trembling hand. "No! Please stay," she
pleaded. "You are a priest. You are the doctor of the soul. And my soul
is sick unto death."
The vicar took her extended hand. "I shall be honoured by your
confidence," he said in courtly fashion, and seating himself beside her
waited for her to speak.
Nor did he wait in vain. In eloquent passionate words, in the burning
accents of her own language, the story of her martyrdom was revealed,
her torn and outraged soul laid bare.
In that quiet room in the old-fashioned English vicarage the ghastly
scenes of butchery and debauch were enacted again; the foul violence of
the enemy, the treason, the drunkenness, the ribaldry of the men who
with "mud and blood" on their feet, had trampled on these women's
souls--all lived before the horrified listeners, and the martyrdom of
the three helpless victims wrung their honest British hearts.
Louise had risen to her feet--a long black figure with a spectral face.
She was Tragedy itself; she was the Spirit of Womanhood crushed and
ruined by the war; she was the Grief of the World.
And now she flung herself at the doctor's feet, her arms outstretched,
her eyes starting from their orbits, imploring him, in a paroxysm of
agony and despair, to release and save her.
She fell face-downwards at his feet, shaken with spasmodic sobs,
writhing and quaking as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. Mrs. Yule
and the doctor raised her and placed her tenderly on the couch. Water
and vinegar were brought, and wet cloths laid on her forehead.
There followed a prolonged silence.
"Unhappy woman!" murmured the vicar, aghast. "Her mind is quite
unhinged."
"Yes," said the doctor; but he said it in a different tone, his
experienced eye taking in every detail of the tense figure still
thrilled and shaken at intervals by a convulsive tremor. "Yes,
undoubtedly. She is on the verge of insanity." He paused. Then he looked
the vicar full in the face. "And unless she is promptly assisted she
will probably become hopelessly and incurably insane."
A low cry escaped Mrs. Yule's lips. "Oh, hush!" she said, bending over
the pallid woman on the couch, fearful lest the appalling verdict might
have reached her. But Louise's weary spirit had slipped away into
unconsciousness.
"A sad case--a terribly sad case," said the vicar, thoughtfully pushing
up his clipped grey moustache with his finger-tips and avoiding the
doctor's resolute gaze. "She shall have our earnest prayers."
"And our very best assistance," said the doctor.
As if the words of comfort had reached her, Louise sighed and opened her
eyes.
Mrs. Yule's protecting arm went round her.
"Of course, of course," said Mr. Yule to the doctor. Then he crossed the
room and stood by the couch, looking down at Louise. "You will be brave,
will you not? You must not give way to despair. We are all here to help
and comfort you."
Louise raised herself on her elbow and looked up at him. A dazzling
light of hope illuminated her face. Mr. Yule continued gravely and
kindly.
"You can rely upon our friendship--nay, more--upon our tenderest
affection. Our home is open to you if, as is most probable, Mrs.
Whitaker desires you to leave her house. My wife and daughter will nurse
and comfort you, will honour and respect you----" Louise broke into low
sobs of gratitude as she grasped Mrs. Yule's hand and raised it to her
lips. "And in the hour----" the vicar drew himself up to his full height
and spoke in louder, more impressive tones--"and in the hour of your
supreme ordeal, you shall not be forsaken."
Louise rose, vacillating, to her feet. "What ... what do you mean?" she
gasped. Her countenance was distorted; her eyes burned like black
torches in her ashen face.
"I mean," declared the clergyman, his stern eyes fixed relentlessly,
almost threateningly, upon the trembling woman, "I mean that whatever
you may have suffered at the hands of the iniquitous, you have no
right"--he raised his hand and his resonant voice shook with the
vehemence of his feeling--"no right yourself to contemplate a crime."
A deep silence held the room. The sacerdotal authority wielded its
powerful sway.
"A crime! a crime!" gasped Louise, and the convulsive tremor seized her
anew. "Surely it is a greater crime to drive me to my death."
"The laws of nature are sacred," said the vicar, his brow flushing, a
diagonal vein starting out upon it; "they may not be set aside. All you
can do is humbly to submit to the Divine law."
Louise raised her wild white face and gazed at him helplessly, but Dr.
Reynolds stepped forward and stood beside her. "My dear Yule," he said
gravely, "do not let us talk about Divine law in connection with this
unhappy woman's plight. We all know that every law, both human and
Divine, has been violated and trampled upon by the foul fiends that this
war has let loose."
The vicar turned upon him a face flushed with indignation. "Do you mean
to say that this would justify an act which is nothing less than
murder?"
The doctor made no reply and the vicar looked at him, aghast.
"Reynolds, my good friend! You do not mean to tell me that you would
dare to intervene?"
Still the doctor was silent. Louise, her ashen lips parted, her wild
eyes fixed upon the two men, awaited her sentence.
"I can come to no hasty decision," said the man of science at last. "But
if on further thought I decide that it is my duty--as a man and a
physician--to interrupt the course of events, I shall do so." He paused
an instant while his eye studied the haggard face and trembling figure
of Louise. "_A priori_," he added, "this woman's mental and physical
condition would seem to justify me in fulfilling her wish."
"Ah!" It was a cry of delirious joy from Louise. She was tearing her
dress from her throat, gasping, catching her breath, shaken with
frenzied sobs in a renewed spasm of hysteria.
They had to lift her to the couch again. The doctor hurriedly dissolved
two or three tablets of some sedative drug and forced the beverage
through Louise's clenched teeth. Then he sat down beside her, holding
her thin wrist in his fingers. Soon he felt the disordered intermittent
pulse beat more rhythmically; he felt the tense muscles slacken, the
quivering nerves relax.
Then he turned to the vicar, who stood with his back to the room looking
out of the window at the dreary rain-swept garden.
"Yule," he said, "I shall be sorry if in following the dictates of my
conscience I lose a life-long friendship--a friendship which has been
very precious to me." The vicar neither answered nor moved; but Mrs.
Yule came softly across the room and stood beside the doctor--the man
who had healed and watched over her and those she loved, who fifteen
years before had so tenderly laid her little blind daughter in her arms.
She remained at his side with flushed cheeks, and her lips moved
silently as if in prayer. Her husband stood motionless, looking out at
the misty November twilight.
"Still more does it grieve me," continued the doctor, "to think that any
act of mine should wound your feelings on a point of conscience which
evidently touches you so deeply. But be that as it may, I must obey the
dictates of common humanity which, in this case, coincide exactly with
the teachings of science. Given the condition in which I find this
woman, I feel that I must try my best to save her reason and her life.
The chances are a hundred to one that if the child lived it would be
abnormal; a degenerate, an epileptic." The doctor stepped near the couch
and looked down at the unconscious Louise. "And as for the mother," he
added, pointing to the pitiful death-like face, "look at her. Can you
not see that she is well on her way to the graveyard or the madhouse?"
There was no reply. In the silence that followed Mrs. Yule drew near to
her husband; but he kept his face resolutely turned away and stared out
of the window.
She touched his arm tremulously. "Think, dear," she murmured, "think
that she has a husband--whom she loves, who is fighting in the trenches
for her and for his home. When he returns, will it not be terrible
enough for her to tell him that his own daughter has lost her reason?
Must she also go to meet him carrying the child of an enemy in her
arms?"
The vicar did not answer. He turned his pale set face away without a
word, and left the room.