As the days wore on, and Lucy Blantyre became accustomed to her surroundings, she found that she was in thorough tune with them. During the year she had been away from St. Elwyn's, she had spent most of the time abroad, at first with Lady Linquest, afterwards with friends. The old life of fashionable people and "smart" doings palled horribly. Travelling was a diversion from that, and, in some sense, a preparation for the more useful life that she determined to live in the future.
She had quite made up her mind to that. Nothing would induce her to go back to live in Park Lane once more. Life offered far more than the West End of London could offer; so much was plain. She kept up a regular correspondence with her brother and was fully informed of all that took place in Hornham. Her thoughts turned more and more affectionately towards the dingy old house, centre of such ceaseless activities, the old house with the great church watching over it.
Down there it seemed as if provision was made for all one's needs of the mind. Stress and storm beat upon it in vain, and it combined the joys of both the cloister and the hearth.
In her limited experience, there had been nothing like it. A year or two ago, she would have smiled incredulously if any one had told her that she would like going to church twice or three times on a week-day. But during her stay at St. Elwyn's how natural and helpful it had seemed, how much a part of the proper order of things. The morning Eucharist while day in the outside world was beginning, the stately and beautiful evensong as men ceased their toil, these coloured all the day, were woven into its warp and woof. She knew that theabnormallife was the life of the majority, the life of those who lived in a purely secular way, who never worshipped or prayed.
When any mind, in its settling of its attitude towards the Unseen, gets as far as this; when it realises that, despite the laughter of fools and the indifference of most people, thelogicaluse of life is to make it in constant touch with God, then, as a rule, the personal religious conviction will come in due time. It had not come to Lucy yet in full and satisfying measure, it had not come even when she determined to make her home with her brother for a time and help in any way she could.
During the year of travel, she was also in regular communication with James Poyntz. Insensibly his letters to her had become the letters of a lover. He told her all his thoughts and the details of his work and hopes, and, mingling with what were in fact a series of brilliant personal confessions, there began to be a high note of personal devotion to her. One does not need the simple alphabet of lover's words to write love letters. Poyntz used no terms of endearment, and as yet had made her no definite proposal of marriage. But the girl knew, quite certainly, exactly how he felt towards her. There was no disguise in his letters, and the time was drawing near when he would definitely ask her to share his life.
She had not yet definitely summed up her attitude towards him. She was at the crossing of the roads; new influences, new ideas were pouring into her brain from every side. It was necessary to readjust herself to life completely before she could settle upon any course.
She knew that to be Lady Huddersfield was to take a high seat in Vanity Fair. The Huddersfields belonged to the old order of society, to that inner circle of the great who never open their door indiscriminately to the Jew and the mining millionaire. People laughed at them and called them pompous and dull, but there was a high serenity among them nevertheless. She might have married half a dozen times had she so chosen. Her income was large enough to make her a small heiress, at any rate to be an appreciable factor in the case, besides which her birth was unexceptionable. It was known that when Lady Linquest fluttered away to another world, the old lady's money would come to her niece. But position merely, rank rather, did not attract a girl who already went wherever she chose. And among the men in society who had offered her marriage, or were prepared to do so, she found no one capable of satisfying her brain. Poyntz did this. She found power in him, strength, purpose. She knew that, in whatever station of life he was, the man was finely tempered, high in that aristocracy of intellect which some people say is the only aristocracy there is.
She was conscious of all this, but, especially since she had been settled in the vicarage as a home, she was becoming conscious of many other influences at work upon her. Religion, the personal giving of one's self to God, was tinging all her life and actions now. Hour by hour, she found herself drawing nearer to the Cross. Her progress had become a matter of practical experience. It was impossible to live with the people she was among, to watch every detail of their lives, to findexactly where the motive power and the sustaining power came from, without casting in her lot with them in greater or less degree. Every day she found some hold upon the outside world was loosened, something she had imagined had great value in her eyes suddenly seemed quite worthless! Looked at in the light that was beginning to shine upon her, she was frequently surprised beyond measure to find how worthless most things were! Her brain was keen, cool, and logical. Hitherto she had refused to draw an inference—no proof, by the way, of any want of logical skill;—now she was drawing it.
She was great and intimate friends with the two assistant priests, Stephens and King. Stephens was engaged to a girl in the country, King belonged to some confraternity of celibates. Both were high-minded men, who appreciated to the full the charm of cultured feminine society and found her drawing-room a most pleasant oasis now and then. And every one at the clergy-house began to see a great deal of Mr. Carr. The lonely man found companionship and sympathy there. He found intellectual men, university men like himself, with whom he could talk. He had been intellectually starving in Hornham, and good brains rust unless they have some measure of intercourse with their kind.
He was constantly with his new friends. One Sunday Father Blantyre preached at St. Luke's. The church was crowded, to hear a man whom a great many there believed capable of almost any form of casuistry and sly dealing. But when the little Irishman got into the pulpit he gave them a simple, forcible discourse on some points of conduct, delivered with all his personal charm, his native raciness and wit; many wagging tongues were silenced in the parish. Carr's experiment was a bold one, but it succeeded. An ounce of fact is worth a pound of hearsay. Blantyre was so transparently honest, so obviously incapable of any of the things imputed to him by the Luther Leaguers, that the most prejudiced folk at St. Luke's said no more than that it was a pity such a decent fellow, who could preach such a good sermon, wasted so much of his time over unnecessary fads!
For some reason or other,—she could not quite explain it to herself,—Lucy looked on Carr with different eyes from those with which she viewed Stephens or King. He seemed less set apart from the ordinary lot of men than they were. His ordinary clerical costume may have had something to do with it, the contrast between his clothes and those of the laymen not being so marked as in the case of the High Church clergy. And his manner also was different in a subtle way. Lucy liked the manner of King and she liked the manner of Carr, but they were markedly unlike each other. The former spoke of everything from the Church's point of view, the latter more from the point of view of an ordinary layman who loves and serves our Lord.
Lucy had no fault to find with the ecclesiastical attitude. She had long before realised what were the spiritual results of rebellion and schism; they were too patent in Hornham. She was definitely Catholic. Therefore she approved of King as a priest and liked him as a man. But Carr seemed to be more upon her own level, not set apart in any way. She knew he was just as much a priest as the other, but he came into her consciousness from a purely human standpoint, while the other did not.
Viewing him thus, she had come to find she liked him very much indeed. He was a very "manly" man, she found, with a virile intellect which had had too little play of late years. She came to know of his life and found it as full of good works as her brother's. The methods differed, the Church and its services took an altogether secondary place in these ministrations; the charities of a poor man were necessarily more circumscribed than those of his rich neighbour, but the spiritual fervour was as great.
Lucy could not help wondering why a man who had such abundant means to his hand of holding and influencing his people used so few of them. Why was his church not beautiful? How did he exist spiritually without the sacramental grace so abundantly vouchsafed at St. Elwyn's?
She had a glimpse deep down into the man once. One evening at St. Elwyn's, when Carr had come to supper, the conversation turned upon a rather serious epidemic of typhoid fever that had only just been overcome in Hornham and which had caused a widespread distress among the poorer classes.
"I'm getting up a fund," Father Blantyre said, "to relieve some of the worst cases and to send as many as possible of the convalescents off to the seaside. Now, Lucy, my dear, what will you stump up? This girl's rolling in money, Carr! She's more than she knows what to do with!"
Lucy noticed—no one else did—that Mr. Carr flushed a little and started as Blantyre finished speaking.
She turned to her brother. "I'll give you a hundred pounds, dear," she said.
"Good girl!" he shouted in high good humour.
Lucy turned to Carr. "I suppose you've a great many destitute cases in St. Luke's?" she asked.
"Very many, I'm sorry to say," he answered sadly. "I've done what I could, but I've hardly any money myself until next quarter-day, and our people are nearly all of them poor." He thought with gentle envy of these wealthy folk who were able to do so much, while he, alas! could do so little.
"I'll subscribe something to St. Luke's, too," Lucy said. "I'll give you the same, Mr. Carr. I'll write you a cheque after supper."
"That's a sportswoman!" said Father Blantyre; "good for you, Lucy!"
Carr flushed up. The destitution in his parish had been a constant grief to him during the last few weeks. He had not known where to turn to relieve it. He had prayed constantly that help might be forthcoming. He broke out into a nervous torrent of thanks which came from his very heart, becoming eloquent as he went on and revealing, unconsciously enough, much of his inward self to them. They were all touched and charmed by the man's simplicity and earnestness. He showed a great love for the poor as he talked. Sympathy for suffering and kindness towards it are not rare things in England. We are a charitable folk, take us in the mass. But this quality of personal love for the outcast and down-trodden is not so often met with. It is a talent, and Carr possessed it in a high degree.
A step in their intimacy was marked that night; all felt drawn more closely to the Evangelical vicar. He stood alone; his life seemed cheerless to them all and their sympathy was his—though he had never made the least parade of his troubles. Moreover, the three clergy of St. Elwyn's were beginning to find out, with pleased surprise, how near he was to them in the great essentials, how Catholic his views were. Already much of Carr's dislike to the ceremonial of St. Elwyn's was fading away. He had witnessed it, found that there was absolutely no harm in it, that it didnotstand between the soul and God, but even sometimes assisted in the journey upwards. He did not endorse it as yet, he did not contemplate anything of the sort for himself or his people, but he saw the good there and found nothing to disgust or harm.
Later on that evening, Dr. Hibbert came in, and there was music. Lucy played and sang to them, and Carr, who had a fine baritone, sang an old favourite or two, college songs,Gaudeamus Igitur,John Peel, and the like.
Then, while the four other men took a hand at whist—if only Mr. Hamlyn could have seen the "devil's picture books" upon the table!—Carr had a long, quiet talk with Lucy Blantyre. He found himself telling her much of his work and hopes, of his early life in a bleak Northumberland vicarage, of Cambridge, and the joyous days when he rowed three in the King's boat and all the skies were fair.
Now and then, when he would have withdrawn into himself again, fearing that he was boring her, she encouraged him to go on. With her cheque in his pocket, he went home in a glow that night. He thought constantly of her, and when he went to bed, he looked curiously in the mirror, turning away from it with a sigh, a shake of the head, and the chilling memory that the girl was rich, allied to great families, a personage in London society, and that a poor gentleman toiling in Hornham could never be a mate for such as she was.
Three or four days after the incident of the subscription, Lucy received a letter from Agatha Poyntz, who was staying with the St. Justs in Berkeley Square. The letter begged Lucy to "come up to town" for an afternoon. A theatre party had been formed, which was to consist of Agatha herself, Lady Lelant, a young married cousin of hers, and James Poyntz. Lucy was begged to come and complete the party. They were to go to tea afterwards at the Savoy or somewhere, and Lucy could drive home in the evening. The letter was quite imperative in its demand for Lucy's presence, and the girl had a shrewd suspicion who it was that had inspired it. Her last few letters from Poyntz had been almost, so she fancied, leading up to just some such occasion as this which was now proposed.
She thought it all over during the morning of that day. Her mind wavered. A few weeks ago she knew that she would not have hesitated for a moment. Whatever her answer might eventually be to what James Poyntz had to say, she would have gone to the tryst and listened to him. To hear him pleading, to see this scion of an ancient and honourable house, this big-brained man, pleading for her, would be sweet. Every woman would feel that. But now she hesitated very much. She hardly owned it to herself, but a very different figure was coming to have a continual place in her thoughts. A graver figure, a less complex figure, and one invested with a dignity that was not of this world, a dignity that the peer's son had not.
For now, most indubitably, a new element was coming into her life, one that had not been there before.
And there was yet another cause for her hesitation. She had come to see that the supremely important thing in life was religion; she knew that it was going to be so for her. She wasn't bigoted, she realised the blameless life that many people who did not believe in our Lord appeared to live. But that was not the point. Works were good, they were a necessary concomitant of any life that was to be bound up with hers. But faith was a paramount necessity also. She had no illusions about James Poyntz. She did not think, as less keen-sighted girls have thought of atheist lovers, that she could ever bring him to the Faith. She knew quite well that it would be impossible, that he was one of those folk to whom the "talent" of faith does not seem to have been given, and who will have to begin all over again in the next world, learning the truths of Christianity like children.
While she was thinking out the question of acceptance or refusal, her eye caught a date on her tablets. It was the date of the theatre party and also of a meeting to be held during the afternoon in the public hall at Hornham, at which Father Blantyre had consented to hold public argument upon the legalities of ritual and the truth of Catholic dogma with some of the Luther Lecturers.
Hamlyn had intended that this meeting should take place in the evening, for two reasons. In the first place, during the afternoon he was himself to address a great meeting in London, to which all the "red-hot Protestants" on the lists of the League had been specially invited by ticket, and at which a great sensation was hinted at, in much the same way as music-hall managers announce the forthcoming appearance of some entirely new spectacle, trick, or performer.
Mr. Hamlyn had hoped to arrive in Hornham from the Strand flushed with a great victory, the news of which would have preceded him during the afternoon.
Moreover, in the evening an audience would assemble with which the Luther Lecturers would be thoroughly at home—Mr. Sam Hamlyn would have seen to that—and the place would be packed by rowdy non-churchgoers who would come with the intention of witnessing a row, even if they themselves had to create it. Thus a "great Protestant demonstration of North London" would be absolutely assured.
Unfortunately, Mr. Hamlyn received the plainest of plain hints from the local chief of police that he would get himself into particularly hot water if he proceeded with his little scheme, and that the words of one of his men—the ingenuous Mr. Moffatt indeed, who, locked out of every church in England, had lately returned to his parental roof for a holiday—to a certain rough section of the community, in connection with this very meeting, would be brought up against him.
The police had no objection to a meeting during the afternoon. The dangerous element would still be pushing their barrows of plums and pears through the city streets, and though the meeting would, no doubt, be skilfully packed with partisans, many women would be present and nothing more than a wordy war would be likely to result.
Lucy saw the date and considered that the question of the matinée was decided for her. She mentioned the invitation at lunch, and was very much surprised to find that her brother strongly deprecated her intention of being present at the discussion and welcomed this invitation.
"I don't want you to go, dear," he said; "I beg of you not. It will be rough and bitter. I know it. I shrink from it myself, but I must show them that we are not afraid to meet them openly. But it would do nothing but distress you. Write to Miss Poyntz this afternoon and say you'll go. Then you can hear all about the meeting in the evening when you get back." He was so obviously in earnest that Lucy could not but agree.
It seemed fate sent her to meet James. Well, it must be, that was all. Circumstances must be faced, and if she did not know her own mind now, it was possible that the event itself would decide it for her.
But she addressed the letter with marked nervous excitement, and the "Hon. Agatha Poyntz" was more tremulous than her writing was wont to be.
There were two days more to wait, a Sunday intervened, and she hardly left the church during the whole day, seeking counsel and help where only they are to be found.
On Monday, she arrived at the theatre at about two. She had refused to lunch with her friends and drove from Hornham in a hansom cab, meeting them at the door of the building.
They went at once to their box and found that there were some five minutes to wait before the rise of the curtain.
The theatre was curious after the glare of the sun outside, fantastic and unreal. Hardly anybody talked, though there was a good house, and the strange quiet of a matinée audience seemed to pervade the four people in the box also.
Lucy leaned back in her chair with the sensation of dreaming. This morning she had knelt in the side chapel at St. Elwyn's! A moment before she had been alone in the cab, among the roar and bustle of Trafalgar Square. Now she was in a dream. Agatha and Adelaide Lelant smiled at her without speaking—just like odd dream people. James Poyntz sat just behind her. She was acutely conscious of his presence. Now and then he bent forward and made some remark or other in a low voice. That also seemed to come from a distance. She seemed to have left all the real things behind in Hornham.
The scents, the dresses of the fashionable people in the stalls, the dim, apricot light, seemed alien to her life now, a reminder of experiences and days long since put away and forgotten.
The little band below had been playing a waltz of Weber's, a regret which was strangled into a sob as the curtain rose suddenly upon the first act of the play.
How acutely conscious one was at first of the artificial light! The big frame of the proscenium enclosed a rich garden scene, beautifully painted. But it was full of hot yellow light, until the eye forgot the outside day it had lately quitted. Lucy thought that for the sake of illusion it was a mistake to come to the play in the afternoon. She said so to James.
"Well," he whispered, "for my part, there is never any illusion in the stage for me. It is a way of passing an idle hour now and then. That is all. I came here not to see the play, but to see you."
She turned towards the stage again with a slight flush.
Behind the footlights the perfectly dressed men and women went through their parts. All appeared as if they had put on for the first time the clothes they wore; both men and women had the complexion of young children—peaches and cream—unless the light fell on the face at an awkward angle. Then it glistened.
And all the people on the stage talked alike, too. They did not speak quite like ladies or gentlemen, but imitated the speech of ladies and gentlemen wonderfully! The play did not interest Lucy. It was a successful play, it was played by people who were celebrated actors, but she was out of tune with the whole thing. It wasn't amusing. Between the acts, Lady Lelant chatted merrily, of such news as there was to be gleaned during a passage through town. She spoke of the movements of this or that acquaintance, whom this girl was engaged to, why Lord Dawlish had quarrelled with the Duke of Dover. Lucy had no interest in these matters any more. She realised that with astonished certainty. She didn't care a bit. After all, these smart people and their doings were not, as she had thought in the past, any more interesting than the group of church people at St. Elwyn's. Indeed they were less so. Dr. Hibbert, one or two of the nursing sisters, some of the choir men, King, Stephens, Carr—all these people had more individuality,lived, thought, felt, prayedmore intensely than Lady Lelant's set, Lady Linquest's set, any purely fashionable set. There was not a doubt that in the mere worldly economy of things, in the state politic, every one of these Hornham peoplemattered morethan those others. And, where hearts and wills are weighed, to the critical Unseen eyes, their value was greater still. Lucy was glad when the play began again, and she was relieved of the necessity for a simulated interest in things she had long since put away from her.
The last act of the mimic story dragged on. Agatha and Lady Lelant were absorbed in it. Lucy withdrew a little from the front of the box. She cared nothing for the play, nor did her companion. Both of them knew of things imminent in their twin lives greater than any mimic business could suggest to them.
He began to tell her in a low voice of his joy in seeing her again. It thrilled her to hear the lover-like tones creeping into a voice so clear, cold, and self-contained in all the ordinary affairs of life. It was an experience that disturbed and swayed all the instincts of her sex. For she knew that this was no ordinary conquest that she had made, no ordinary tribute to her mind and person. She might have received the highest compliment that he was about to pay her from many a man as highly placed and socially fortunate as he. There was no exhilaration, no subtle flattery of her pride and the consciousness of her womanhood in that. But she knew him for what he was. She had learned of the intellect and power of the man—herein lay an exquisite pleasure in his surrender. And she liked him immensely. Physically, he pleased her eye, and her sense of what was fitting in a man. Mentally he compelled her. And now and again in their intimacy, an intimacy that had grown enormously during the last year, fostered on their mutual epistolary confidences, she had found a sudden surrender, a boyish leaning on her, a waiting for her approving or helpful word, that was sweet to her.
At last the curtain fell.
"Now, then," Poyntz said, "we'll go and have tea on the terrace at the Sardinia. There will be a band, a really good band, and the embankment will look beautiful just now. Come along, young ladies; we'll walk, shall we? It won't take us five minutes." They left the theatre.
"Ah!" Lucy said with a sudden gasp of relief, "how good the air is after that dark place and the stage. My eyes feel as if they had been actually burnt."
The long lights of the summer afternoon irradiated everything. There are moments in summer when the busiest London street seems like a street in fairy-land. It was so now as they walked to the great riverside hotel; a tender haze of gold lay over all the vast buildings, the sky began to be as if it were hung with banners.
They passed from the roar of the street to the great courtyard, with its gay awnings of white and red, its palms and tree-ferns in green tubs, its little tables like the tables of a continental café. Little groups of people of all nationalities sat about there. The party heard the twanging accent of the United States, the guttural German, the purring, spitting Russian.
They entered the hotel, walked down a corridor, descended some steps, and came out upon the terrace.
Lucy had a finely developed social instinct. She knew what was going on instinctively, and it was plain to her at once that the moment had come. Agatha Poyntz and her cousin had disappeared as she sat down at a small table with James, hidden by shrubs from the rest of the terrace.
Below and beyond were gardens in which children were playing, the wide embankment, and the silver Thames itself, all glowing under the lengthening sun rays.
What did she feel at that moment? She found that she was calm, her pulses were quiet, her breathing untroubled and slow.
He leaned forward and took her hands strongly in both of his. At first, his words came haltingly to him, but then, gathering courage, he made her a passionate declaration.
Her heart cried out vaguely to some outside power for guidance; her inarticulate appeal was hardly a prayer, it was the supreme expression of perplexity and doubt.
"For months, all my work and life have been coloured by thoughts of you, have had reference to you. I can conceive, since I have been writing to you, and you to me, I have had hopes and dreams that have become part of my life! If you could accept this, this devotion, this strong feeling of love which has grown up in me, I feel that our companionship would be a beautiful thing. Lucy, I am not eloquent in love as some men are said to be, I can only tell you that I love and admire you dearly and have no greater hope than to share everything with you, my lady, my love!"
The strong, self-contained young man was deeply moved. He continued, in a monologue of singular delicacy and high feeling, to pour out the repressed feelings of the past year, to offer her a life that was more stainless—she knew it well—than that of most young men.
She was deeply touched, interested, and rather overawed. But there was no thrill of passion in her that could answer to the notes of it that were coming into his voice and shaking it from its firmness, sending tremulous waves quivering through it.
Her hand shook in his hold, but it was passive. Emotion rushed over her, but it was a cool emotion, so to say; she was touched, but her blood did not race and leap at his touch, she felt no wish to rest in his arms, to find her home there!
At last she was able to speak. There was a pause in his pleading, his eyes remained fixed upon her face in anxious scrutiny.
She withdrew her hand gently.
"You have touched me very deeply," she said. "But I can't, oh, Ican'tanswer you now. This is such a great thing. There is so much to think over, so much self-examination. It might all look quite different to one to-morrow! Let me wait, give me time. I will write to you."
His ear found the lack of what he sought in her voice. Even to herself her tones sounded cold and conventional after his impassioned pleading. But she found herself mistress neither of reason nor of feeling as she spoke. She was bewildered, though not taken by surprise.
He seemed to understand something of her state of mind. If his disappointment was keen, he showed nothing of it, realising with the pertinacity of a strong, vigorous nature that nothing really worth having was won easily, thankful, perhaps, that he had won as much as he had—her consideration.
"You know how great a thing this is to me," he said. "You would never be unkind or hard to me and it would be an unkindness to prolong my suspense. When will you give me my answer?"
"Oh, soon, soon! But I must have time. I will write to you soon, in a fortnight I will write."
"That is so long a time!"
"It will pass very swiftly."
"Then I accept your decree. But I shall write to you, even if you don't answer me until I get the letter, oh, happy day! on which you tell me what my whole heart longs to hear. You will read my letters during the time of waiting? Promise me that, Lucy."
"Yes, yes, I promise," she said hastily, seeing that Agatha and Adelaide Lelant were coming towards them.
Her brain was whirling; James himself was agitated and unstrung by the vehemence of feeling, the nerve storm, that he had just passed through. And in the minds of Miss Poyntz and Lady Lelant the liveliest curiosity and interest reigned, as it naturally would reign, under such circumstances, in the minds of any normal young women, gentle or simple, with blue blood or crimson.
But the four people had learned the lessons their life-long environment had taught. Their faces were masks, their talk was trivial.
When at length Lucy rose to go, declining to drive home with Lady Lelant, they all came into the big, quiet courtyard of the hotel, "to help her choose her hansom." Every unit of the little party felt her departure would be a relief, she felt it herself. The two girls did not know what had happened and were eager to know. James wanted to be alone, to go through the interview step by step in his brain, reconstructing it for the better surveyal of his chances, and to plan an epistolary campaign, or bombardment rather.
Lucy felt the desire, a great and pressing desire, for home and rest. She arrived at the vicarage an hour or so after. As the cab had turned into the familiar, sordid streets she had felt glad! She smiled at her own sensations, but they were very real. This place, this "unutterable North London slum," as she used to call it, was more like home than Park Lane had ever been.
How tired she felt as she went up-stairs to her room! Her face was pale, dark circles had come out under her eyes, she bore every evidence of having passed through some mental strain.
After a bath she felt better, more herself, after these experiences of the afternoon. And to change every article of clothing was in itself a restorative and a tonic. It was an old trick of hers, and she had always found it answer. When she went down-stairs again she was still pale, but had that freshness and dainty completeness that have such enormous charm, that she always had, and that her poorer sisters are so unable to achieve in theva et vientof a hard, work-a-day life.
She wanted to see Bernard, she hungered for her brother. With a pang of self-reproach, she remembered, as she came down-stairs, that this had been the afternoon of the public debate with Hamlyn's people. It was an important event in the parish. And from her start from the clergy-house to her arrival back at its doors, she had quite forgotten the whole thing! In the absorption with her own affairs, it had passed completely from her brain and she was sorry. Of late, she had identified herself so greatly with the affairs and hopes of the little St. Elwyn's community, that she felt selfish and ashamed as she knocked at the door of the study. She waited for a moment to hear the invitation to enter. It was never safe to go into Bernard's room without that precaution. Some tragic history might be in the very article of relation, some weary soul might be there seeking ghostly guidance in its abyss of sorrow and despair.
Some one bade her enter. She did so. The room was dark, filled with the evening shadows. For a moment or two, she could distinguish nothing.
"Are you here, Ber?" she said.
"The vicar is up-stairs, Miss Blantyre," came the answer in King's voice, as he rose from his seat. "I'm here with Stephens."
"Well, let me sit down for a little while and talk," Lucy said. "May I?—please go on smoking. I can stand Bob's pipe, so I can certainly standyours. I want to hear all about the meeting in the Victoria Hall."
They found a chair for her; she refused to have lights brought, saying that she preferred this soft gloom that enveloped them.
Her question about the meeting was not immediately responded to. The men seemed collecting their thoughts. By this time, she was really upon something that resembled a true sisterly footing with these two. Both were well-bred men, incapable of any slackening of the cords of courtesy, but there was a mutual understanding between them and her which allowed deliberation in talk, which, in fact, dispensed with the necessity of conventional chatter.
King spoke at length. "Go on, young 'un," he said to Stephens, waving his pipe at him, as Lucy could see by the red glow in the bowl. "You tell her."
"No,youtell her, old chap."
Lucy wanted to laugh at the odd pair with whom she was in such sympathy. They were just like two boys.
King sighed. Conversation of any sort, unless it was actually in the course of his priestly ministrations, was always painful to him. He was a man whothought. But he could be eloquent and incisive enough when he chose.
"Well, look here, Miss Blantyre," he said, "to begin with, the whole thing has been an unqualified success for the other side! That is to say that the people in the hall—and it was crammed—have gone away in the firm conviction and belief that the Luther Lecturers have got the best of the priests, that, in short, the Protestants have won all along the line."
"Good gracious! Mr. King, do you really mean to say that one of these vulgar, half-educated men was able to beat Bernard in argument, to enlist the sympathies of the audience againstBernard?"
"That's exactly what has happened," King answered. "The vicar is up-stairs now, utterly dejected and worn out, trying to get some sleep."
"But I don't understand how it could be so."
"It is difficult to understand for a moment, Miss Blantyre. But it's easily explained. One good thing has happened: Every priest in the kingdom will have his warning now——"
"Of what?"
"Never to engage in public controversy with any man of the type sent out to advertise the Luther League. I'll try and explain. You'll know what I mean. The controversy upon any sacred and religious subjects, subjects that are very dear to and deeply felt by their defender, is only possible if their attacker pursues legitimate methods. What happened to day is this:
"The audience was mostly Protestant, with a strong sprinkling of people who cared nothing one way or the other, but had come to be amused, or in the expectation of a row. And even if the meeting wasn't 'packed,'—and I've my doubts of that,—you see Catholics don't like to come much to anything of the sort. It is so terribly painful to a man or woman whose whole life is bound up in the Sacraments, who draws his or her 'grace of going on' and hope of heaven from them, to sit and hear them mocked and derided by the coarse, the vulgar, the irreligious. It's an ordeal one can hardly expect any one to go through without a burning indignation and a holy wrath, which may, in its turn, give place to action and words that our Lord has expressly forbidden. One remembers Peter, who cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant, and how he was rebuked. That's why there were not many Catholics present, and besides, the chief had asked many of the congregation to stay away. He wouldn't let Dr. Hibbert go; he knew that he'd lose his temper and that there would be a row."
Lucy listened eagerly. "And what did happen?" she cried.
"Tell Miss Blantyre, Stephens," King answered. "I'm not lazy, but Stephens has got colour in his descriptions! It's like his sermons, all poetry and fervour and no sound discipline! And besides, he's got the 'varsity slang of the day. It's nasty, but it's expressive. When I was up, we talked English—go on, young 'un."
His voice sank, his pipe glowed in the gloom. Stephens took up the parable. "Well, I can't go into all the details," he said. "But the first thing that happened was that the lecturer stood upon the platform, shut his eyes, and prayed that Hornham might be delivered from the curse of priesthood and the blasphemy of the Mass!—this while the vicar was on the platform. The man was going to begin right away, after this, when Mr. Carr stopped him and said that he wished to offer up a prayer also. The fellow frowned, but he dare not stop him. So Carr prayed for a quiet and temperate conduct of the meeting! Then the man began. It was the usual thing, mocking blasphemy delivered in the voice of a cheap-jack, with a flavour of the clown.
"The man had two sacramental wafers and he kept producing them out of a Bible, like a conjuring trick! They were of different sizes, and he said: 'Now, here you see what the Ritualists worship, a biscuit god! And you'll notice there's a little one for the people and a big one for the priest—priests always want the biggest share!' Roars of laughter from every one, of course. Then the fellow went on to speak of the fasting communion. 'For my part,' he said, with a great grin, 'I like to have my breakfast comfortable in the morning before I go to church, and I honestly pity the poor priests who have to starve themselves till mid-day. I shouldn't wonder if the Reverend Blantyre'—with a wink towards the vicar—'often has visions of a nice bit of fried bacon or an 'addock, say, about eleven o'clock in the morning.'"
Lucy gasped. "How utterly revolting," she said, "and people really take that sort of thing seriously?"
"Oh, yes, the sort of people to whom these Luther Leaguers appeal. You see it's their only weapon. They can't argue properly, because they are utterly without education, and they only supplement the parrot lectures they've been taught with their own native low comedy. Our friend this afternoon wound up his oration by inviting the vicar to ask questions—he didn't want him to speak at length, of course. 'Now,' he said, 'I call upon the Reverend Blantyre to ask me any questions he chooses. And I'll just ask him one myself—if God had meant him to wear petticoats, wouldn't He have made him a woman?' This was rather too much, and there were some hisses. The vicar was in his cassock. But the vicar laughed himself, and so every one else did. It seemed to restore the good humour of the meeting, which was just what the lecturer didn't want.
"Well, to cut a long story short, every question the vicar put was the question of a cultured man, that is to say, it assumedsomeknowledge of the point at issue. Each time he was answered with buffooneries and a blatant ignorance that gave the whole thing away at once to any one thatknew. But there was hardly any one there that did, that was the point. The whole audience imagined that we were being scored off tremendously. They got noisy, cheered every apish witticism of the lecturer—oh! it was a disgusting scene. I'll give you an instance of what was said towards the end. The vicar was appealing to the actual words of the Gospel in one instance. 'The Greek text says,' he was beginning, when the man jumps up—'Greek!' he shouted, 'will Greek save a man's soul?Do you suppose Jesus of Nazareth understood foreign tongues?'
"There was a tremendous roar of applause from the people at this. They thought the lecturer had made a great point! They actuallydid! Well, of course, there was hardly any answer to that. In the face of such black depths of ignorance, whatcouldany one do? It would be as easy to explain the theory of gravity to a hog as to explain the Faith to a grinning, hostile mob like that. The vicar sat down. The clown always has the last word in argument before an audience of fools or children. It must be so."
"How did it all end up?"
"Oh, the lecturer got upon his hind legs again and made a speech in which he claimed to have triumphantly refuted the sophistry of the vicar and to have shown what Ritualism really was. Then, encouraged by the general applause, he was beginning to be very personal and rude, when there was a startling interruption. Bob got up from the back of the hall—we didn't know he was there—and began to push his way towards the platform, with a loudly expressed intention of wringing the lecturer's neck there and then. I got hold of him, but he shook me off like a fly. 'Let me be, sir!' he said, 'let me get at the varmin, I'll give him a thick ear, I will!' Then King saw what was going on and rushed up. Bob remembered what King gave him last year and he tried to dodge. By this time, the whole place was in an uproar, sticks were flying about, people were struggling, shouting, swearing, and it looked like being as nasty a little riot as one could wish to see."
"Howhorrible!" Lucy said with a shudder. "I wish Bernard had never been near the place."
"Well, then, all of a sudden," the curate continued, "a mighty voice was heard from the platform. It was Carr! I never heard a man with such a big, arresting voice. He was in a white rage, his eyes flashed, he looked most impressive. He frightened every one, he really did, and in a minute or two he got every one to leave the hall quietly and in order."
"How splendid!" Lucy said. She thought that she could see the whole scene, the squalid struggle, the strong man dominating it all. Her hands were clenched in sympathy. Her teeth were locked.
"He's a big man," the young fellow replied, "a bigger man than any one knows. He'll be round here this evening, I expect. You must get him to tell you all about it, Miss Blantyre."
A few minutes afterwards every one went to church. It was a choral evensong that night, and sung somewhat later than the usual service was. Blantyre did not appear. Lucy would not have him wakened. She knew that sleep was the best thing for over-tired nerves, that he would view the futile occurrences of the afternoon less unhappily after sleep.
It was after nine o'clock when the vicar eventually made his appearance. He was worn and sad in face, his smile had lost its merriment. Lucy had made them all come into her room for music. They wanted playing out of their depression, and in ministering to them she forgot her own quandary and perplexities. At last the light, melodious numbers ofFaustandCarmenhad some influence with them, and about ten the three men were visibly brighter. They were in the habit of taking a cup of tea before going to bed; to-night Lucy made them have soup instead.
It was a few minutes after the hour, when the bell rang; in a moment or two, Bob—extremely anxious to efface himself as much as possible after the event of the afternoon—showed Mr. Carr into the drawing-room.
His face was very white and set. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to call on you so late, but have you seen the evening papers, any of you?" No one had seen them.
"I'm afraid there is something that will give you great pain, a great shock. It has grieved me deeply, it must be worse for you, my friend—thinking as you do of the Eucharist."
"What is it?" Father Blantyre said.
Carr held out an evening paper. "Briefly," he said, "while we were at the meeting down here, Hamlyn, Senior, had a special gathering of extreme Protestants in Exeter Hall. He produced aconsecrated waferand exhibited it, stating that he had purloined it from the Holy Communion service the day before. This was corroborated by two men who went with him and were witnesses of the act."
Every vestige of colour left the faces of the three priests of St. Elwyn's. Suddenly Blantyre gave a little moan and fainted, sinking on to a couch behind him.
They brought him round without much trouble, and King helped him up-stairs to bed, refusing to let him go into the church as he wished. Lucy saw that tears were falling silently over the grim, heavy face of King.
When the vicar was safely bestowed in his room, Stephens and King, saying nothing to each other, but acting with a common impulse, went into the church. In the side chapel, where the dim red glow of the sanctuary-lamp was the only light, they remained on their knees all night, praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
On the following morning, Blantyre went away. He was absent from Hornham for two days, and it was understood that he had gone to visit Lord Huddersfield. Hamlyn and his doings were not in any way mentioned by the two other clergy.
The days of his absence were a time of great unrest and mental debate for Lucy.
She was at a crisis in her life. She had definitely come to a moment when she must choose between one thing or another. It is a commonplace of some preachers to say that this moment of definite choice comes to every one at least once in their lives. But the truth of the assertion is at least doubtful. Many people are spared the pain of what is more or less an instantaneous decision. They merge themselves gradually, in this or that direction, the right or the wrong. And they are the more fortunate.
For Lucy, however, the tide was at the flood. She must push out upon it and hoist her sail, but whether she should go east or west, run before the wind or beat up into the heart of it—that she must now decide.
She had no illusions about her position. To marry James Poyntz meant one thing, to refuse him meant another. In the first place, she wanted to be married. Physically, socially, mentally, she was perfectly aware that she would be happier. Her nature needed the complement of a husband. She was pure, but not virginal, in temperament. She put it to herself that—as she believed—she had a talent for wifehood.
Here was a young man who satisfied all her instincts of what was fitting in a man she could marry. She did not love him, but she admired, liked, and respected him. Something of the not unhealthy cynicism—the sane cynicism—of a woman of the world had entered into her. She wasn't a sentimentalist, she didn't think that the "love" of the poet and story-teller was the only thing in the relation of a wife to a husband. She had seen many marriages, she had watched the firm, strong affection that came after marriage, and she saw that it was a good, worthy, and constant thing.
She had been much in France. Lady Linquest had friends and relatives among the stately families of the Faubourg St. Germain. Those weddings in France that were decorously arranged by papa and mamma, how did they turn out? On the whole well enough, happily enough. It was only the ignorant lower middle-class of England that thought France was a mightylupanarand adultery a joke.
And in marrying Poyntz she would marry a man whom she was worthy of intellectually. He would satisfy every instinct she possessed—every instinct but one.
And here, she knew, here lay the root of the whole question.
The very strongest influence that can direct and urge any soul towards a holy life is the society and companionship, even the distant contemplation, of a saintly man or woman.
The force of example acts as a lens. It focuses all the impulses towards good and concentrates them. In making clear the beauty of holiness, it shows that it is not a vague beauty, but an ideal which may be realised by the observer.
Lucy had been living with saintly folk. Bernard was saintly—if ever a man was; the bulldog, King, was a saint and walked with God. Stephens was a schoolboy, full of slang and enthusiasm, blunders and love of humanity, but he was saintly too. Miss Cass, the housekeeper with the face of a horse, who called "day" "dy" and the Mass "Mess," she was a holy woman. Before the ugly, unlettered spinster, the society girl, with all her power and charm, had learned to bow in her mind.
That was Lucy's great virtue. She was frank with herself. She glossed over nothing, she pretended nothing. It is the person who postures and poses before himself who is in the chiefest danger. And Carr, well, Carr was a saintly man also. He hadn't got the more picturesque trimmings that the others had. His spiritual life was not so vividly expressed in, and witnessed to, by his clothes and daily habit of life. But he was a saintly man. As she thought of him Lucy thought of him as manandsaint.
All these people lived for one thing, had one aim, believed one thing.
They lived to serve our Lord, to do His work, to adore Him.
Why, even Bob, the navvy, whom Father King had knocked down as a beery blackguard and set up again as a butler, even Bob was feeling a slow and ponderous way towards sainthood! He could not boast a first-rate intelligence, but, helovedour Lord.
Yes!—ah, that was the most beautiful thing of all. ToloveHim.
"Do IloveHim?" Lucy asked herself during those two days.
And the answer that came to her was a very strange one. It was this. She loved our Lord, but she could not make up her mind to give up everything earthly and material for Him. She wanted a compromise.
In fact, she was near the gates of the spiritual life, but she had not entered them.
She did not disguise one fact from herself. If she married Poyntz she would immediately be withdrawn, and withdrawn for ever, from the new influences which were beginning to permeate her, to draw her towards the state of a Christian who is vowed and militant.
She knew the influence that as her husband James would have. His ideals were noble and high, his life was pure and worthy. But it was not the life that Christ had made so plain and clear. The path the Church showed was not the path James would follow, or one which as his wife she could well follow.
She believed sincerely, as her brother himself would have told her, that a man like Poyntz was only uneducated in spiritual things, not lost to them for ever.
But she was also sure that he would make no spiritual discoveries in this world.
Marriage with him meant going back. It meant turning away from the Light.
The struggle with the training of years, the earthly ideals of nearly all her life, was acute. But hour by hour, she began to draw nearer and nearer to the inevitable solution.
Now and again, she went into the silent church. Then, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, she saw the path quite clear.
Afterwards, back in her room again, the voices of the material world were heard. But they became weaker and more weak as the hours went on.
On the day that Bernard was to return, she received a long and passionate letter from her lover.
He had the wonderful gift of prose. He understood, as hardly any of us understand, how to treat words (on certain occasions of using them) as if they were almost notes in some musical composition. His letter was beautiful.
She read it page by page, with a heart that had begun to beat with quickened interest, until she came to a passage which jarred and hurt. James had made an end of his most impassioned and intimate passages, and was making his keen satiric comment upon general affairs—quite as he had done in his letters before his actual avowal.
"I saw my father to-day in St. James, and we went to his club and lunched together. I respect him more and more, for his consistency, every time I meet him. And I wonder more and more at his childishness at the same time. It seems he had just left your brother. As you are in the thick of all the mumbo-jumbo, perhaps you will have heard of the business that seems to be agitating my poor dear sire into a fever. It seems that, a day or two ago, an opposition hero who has consecrated his life to the Protestant cause—none other than the notorious Hamlyn himself—purloined a consecrated wafer from some church and has been exhibiting it at public meetings to show that it is just as it ever was—a pinch of flour and no more. My father has made himself utterly miserable over the proceedings of this merry-andrew. As you know, I take but little interest in the squabbles of the creeds, but the spectacle of a sane and able man caught up in the centre of these phantasies makes me pause and makes my contempt sweeten into pity."
As Lucy read the letter, she thought of the scene on the night when Carr had brought the news. She thought of her own quick pain as she heard it, of how her brother was struck down as with a sword. And especially there came to her the vision of the two priests, King and Stephens, praying all night long before the Host.
She pushed the letter away from her, nor did she read it again. It seemed alien, out of tune with her life.
She went into the church to pray.
When she came away, her resolution was nearly taken.
Bernard came home about three in the afternoon. His manner was quiet. He was sad, but he seemed relieved also.
Lucy was walking in the garden with him, soon after his return, when Stephens and Dr. Hibbert came down from the house and walked quickly up to them.
"Vicar," the doctor said, "Miss Pritchett is dying."
Blantyre started. "Oh, I didn't know it was as bad as that," he said. "Is it imminent?"
"A matter of twenty hours I should say," the doctor replied; "I bring you a message from her."
Blantyre's face lighted up. Great tenderness came over it as he heard that the woman who had injured him and sought to harm the Church had sent him a message.
"Poor woman," he said; "what is it—God bless her!"
"She has asked for you and the other clergy to come to her. She wishes me to bring you and such other members of the congregation as will come. She wishes to make a profession of Faith."
"But when, how—" the vicar asked, bewildered.
The doctor explained. "The Hamlyns are with her; she is frightened by them, but not only that, she bitterly repents what she has done. Poor soul! Blantyre, she is very penitent, she remembers the Faith. She asks—" He drew the vicar aside. Lucy could hear no more. But she saw deep sympathy come out upon her brother's face.
The three men—Stephens had remained with the doctor—came near her again.
"My motor is outside," the doctor said hurriedly.
"How long would it take?" asked the vicar.
"——if the Bishop is in—back in an hour and a half——"
The vicar took Stephens aside and spoke earnestly with him for a few moments. The young man listened gravely and then hurried away. Before the vicar and the doctor joined Lucy again—they stood in private talk a moment—she heard the "toot" of the motor-car hum on the other side of the garden wall.
Wondering what all this might mean, she was about to cross the lawn towards the two men, when she saw Father King and Mr. Carr coming out of the house. These two joined the vicar and Dr. Hibbert. The four men stood in a ring. Blantyre seemed to be explaining something to the new-comers. Now and then the doctor broke in with a burst of rapid explanation.
Lucy began to be full of wonder. She felt ignored, she tried not to feel that. Something was afoot that she did not quite understand.
In the middle of her wonder the men came towards her.
Bernard took her arm. "Mavourneen," he said, "will you come with us to poor Miss Pritchett? She's been asking if you'll come and forgive her and part good friends. She may die to-night, the doctor says. You'll come?"
"Of course I'll come, dear."
"She has repented of her hostility to the Church, and desires to make a public statement of her faith before she dies. And she has asked for the Sacrament of Unction.... Stephens has gone to the Bishop of Stepney on the doctor's motor-car. In an hour we will go to Malakoff."
The doctor took King by the arm and led him away. They talked earnestly together.
Blantyre turned to Carr.
"Will ye come with us all to the poor soul's bedside?" he asked.
"Yes," Carr answered. "I don't know what you purpose exactly—and I don't care! I trust you as a brother now, Blantyre, I am learning every day. I'm a conservative, you know, new things are distasteful to me. But I am learning that there are medicines,pro salute animæ."
"New things!" Blantyre said; "ye're an old Protestant at heart still. Did they teach yenohistory at Cambridge except that the Church of England began at the Reformation? Now, listen while I tell you what the service is. You remember St. James v. 14, 15?"
Carr nodded. He began to quote from memory, for his knowledge of the Scriptures was profound, a knowledge even more accurate and full than perhaps any of the three priests of St. Elwyn's could claim, though they were scholars and students one and all.
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of our Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
"Well, I suppose that is fairly explicit?" Blantyre said. "Mr. Hamlyn would tell us that Unction is a conjuring trick invented by the Jesuits. And you have always thought it Popish and superstitious. Now, haven't you, Carr, be honest!"
"Yes."
"Well, you will see the service to-day. We follow the ancient order of the Church of England. Why did you object, Carr? I'd like to get at your mental attitude. What is there unscriptural, bad, or unseemly about Unction? Here's a poor woman who has strayed from the fold. She wishes to die at peace with every one, she wishes that the inward unction of the Holy Spirit may be poured into the wounds of her soul, she wants to be forgiven for the sake of our Lord's most meritorious Cross and Passion! If it is God's will, she may be cured."
He spoke with great fervour and earnestness.
Carr bowed his head and thought. "Yes," he said, "I have been very prejudiced and hard, sometimes. It is so easy to condemn what one does not know about, so hard to have sympathy with what one has not appreciated."
Blantyre caught him by the arm and they walked the lawn for a long time in fraternal intercourse.
Lucy sat down with the doctor, but her eyes often turned to the tall, grave figure, whose lengthening shadow sometimes reached to her feet and touched them.
At last they heard the panting of the returning motor-car. Stephens had arrived with the oil that the Bishop had blessed.
The whole party got into the car, which was a large one, and they set off rapidly through the streets towards Malakoff House.
How strange it was, Lucy thought, this swift career of moderns in the wonderful machine of their age, this rush to the bedside of a dying woman with the last consolation of the Church! It was full of awe, but full of sweetness also. It seemed to show—and how plainly—the divine continuity of the Faith, the harmonic welding of the order and traditions of our Lord's own time with the full vivid life of the nineteenth century.
They were shown into the grim house. Truly the shadow of death seemed to lie there, was exhaled from the massive funereal furniture of a bygone generation, with all its faded pomp and circumstance.
The mistress of it all was going away from it for ever, would never hold her tawdry court in that grim drawing-room any more.
Dr. Coxe, Hibbert's assistant, came down-stairs and met them.
"I have got the two Hamlyns out of the house at last," he whispered. "They were distressing the patient greatly. I insisted, however. We had a row on the stairs—fortunately, I don't think the patient could hear it. I'm sorry, doctor, but I had to use a little physical persuasion to the young one."
"Never mind, Coxe," Hibbert answered. "I'll see that nothing comes of it. They won't dare to do anything. I will see to that. Is Miss Pritchett ready? Can we go up?"
"Yes," the young man answered, looking curiously at the four priests and the grave girl who was with them in her gay summer frock. "Miss Davies is there."
He was a big, young Scotsman, with a profound contempt for religion, but skilled and tender in his work, nevertheless.
"Will you come up?" Hibbert whispered, taking him a little apart from the others.
"I'd rather be excused, old man," he answered. "Call me if I'm wanted. I can't stand this mumbo-jumbo, you know!"
Hibbert nodded curtly. He understood the lad very well. "Will you follow me, Father?" he said to Blantyre.
Blantyre put on his surplice and stole. Then they all went silently up the wide stairs, with their soft carpet and carved balusters, into the darkened chamber of death.
The dying woman was propped up by pillows. Her face was the colour of grey linen, the fringes of hair she wore in health were gone.
A faint smile came to her lips. Then, as she saw Lucy, she called to her in a clear, thin voice that seemed as if it came from very far away.
"Kiss me, my dear," she said; "forgive me."
Lucy kissed the old, wrinkled face tenderly. Her tears fell upon it in a sacrament of forgiveness and holy amity.
"I want just to say to all of you," Miss Pritchett said, "that I have been untrue to what I really believed, and I have helped the enemies of the Faith. I never forgot your teaching, Father, I knew all the time I was doing wrong. I ask all of you to forgive me as I believe Jesus has forgiven me."
A murmur of kindliness came from them all.
"Then I can go in peace," she gasped. Then with a faint and pathetic shadow of her old manner she turned to Gussie. "Hush!" she said. "Stop sniffling, Miss Davies! I am very happy. Now, Father——"
Her eyes closed and her hands remained still. They saw all earthly thoughts die out of the wrinkled old face, now turned wholly to God.
They all knelt save the vicar, who had placed the oil in an ampulla upon a table.
Then he began the 71st Psalm. "In Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion: but rid me, and deliver me, in Thy righteousness, incline Thine ear unto me, and save me."
There was no sound in the chamber save that of the ancient Hebrew song.
"Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed: until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to all them that are yet for to come.
"Thy righteousness, O God, is very high: and great things are they that Thou hast done; O God, who is like unto Thee?"
Then, all together, they said the antiphon: "O Saviour of the world, who by Thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, save us and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord."
The central figure in the huge four-post bed lay still and waxen. But when the priest came up to it with the oil, the eyes opened and looked steadfastly into his face.
He dipped his thumb into the silver vessel and made the sign of the Cross on the eyes, the ears, the lips, the nostrils, and the hands, saying each time as he did so:
"Through this unction, and of His most tender mercy, may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed."
The whispering words that brought renewal of lost innocence to the dying woman sank into Lucy's heart, never to leave it. In the presence of these wondrous mysteries, death, and death vanquished by Christ, sin purged and forgiven in the Sacrament, her resolution was made. She knew that she would fix her eyes upon the Cross, never to take them from it more.
She saw her brother bending over the still figure, his white surplice ghostlike in the gloom of the hangings, as he wiped the anointed parts with wool.
Then Stephens brought him a basin of clear water and he washed his hands.
Raising his arm, he said:
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, may this anointing with oil be to thee for the purification of thy mind and body, and may it fortify and defend thee against the darts of evil spirits.Amen."
Two more prayers were said and then came the Blessing.
All rose from their knees. As Lucy slipped from the room, she saw the doctor was bending over the waxen figure in the bed.
She heard her brother and his two assistant priests beginning other prayers, in a louder voice, a sort of litany, it seemed.
She found Carr was beside her descending the stairs.
"What is that?" she whispered.
"The prayers for the commendation of a departing soul; she is going. God rest her and give her peace."
"Amen," said Lucy.
They came down into the hall, where they stood for a moment quite alone. Both were greatly agitated, both felt drawn together by some great power.
"How beautiful it is!" Carr said at length. "Our Lord is with her. May we all die so."
"Poor, dear woman!"
"In a few moments she will be in the supreme and ineffable glory of Paradise. I want to see trees and flowers, to think happily of the wonderful mercy and goodness of God among the things He has made. I should like to walk in the park for an hour, to hear the birds and see the children play. Will you come with me?"
"Yes, I will come."
He took her hand and bowed low over it.
"I have a great thing to ask of you," he said.
They walked soberly together until they came to the railed-in open space. To each the air seemed thick with unspoken thoughts.
The park was a poor place enough. But flowers grew there, the grass was green, it was not quite Hornham. They sat upon a bench and for a minute or two both were silent. Lucy knew a serenity at this moment such as she had hardly ever known. She was as some mariner who, at the close of a long and tempestuous voyage, comes at even-tide towards harbour over a still sea. The coastwise lights begin to glimmer, the haven is near.
In her mind and heart, at that moment, she was reconciled to and in tune with all that is beautiful in human and Divine.
She sat there, this well-known society girl, who, all her life, had lived with the great and wealthy of the world, in great content. In the "park" of Hornham, with the poor clergyman, she knew supreme content.
In a low voice that shook with the intensity of his feeling and yet was resolute and informed with strength, Carr asked Lucy to be his wife.
She gave him her hand very simply and happily. A river that had long been weary had at last wound safe to sea. That she should be the wife of this man was, she knew, one of the gladdest and most merciful ordinances of God.