When Glory learned that all nurses eligible to attend the ball were to wear hospital uniform, being on day duty she decided to go to it. But then came John Storm's protest against the company of Polly Love, and she felt half inclined to give it up. As often as she remembered his remonstrance she was disturbed, and once or twice when alone she shed tears of anger and vexation.
Meantime Polly was full of arrangements, and Glory found herself day by day carried along in the stream of preparation. When the night came the girls dressed in the same cubicle. Polly was prattling like a parrot, but Glory was silent and almost sad.
By help of the curling tongs and a candle Polly did up her dark hair into little knowing curls that went in and out on her temples and played hide-and-seek around the pretty shells of her pink-and-white ears. Glory was slashing the comb through her golden-red hair by way of preliminary ploughing, when Polly cried: “Stop! Don't touch it any more, for goodness' sake! It's perfect! Look at yourself now.”
Glory stood off from the looking glass and looked. “Am I really so nice?” she thought; and then she remembered John Storm again, and had half a mind to tear down her glorious curls and go straight away to bed.
She went to the ball instead, and, being there, she forgot all about her misgivings. The light, the colour, the brilliance, the perfume transported her to an enchanted world which she had never entered before. She could not control her delight in it. Everything surprised her, everything delighted her, everything amused her—she was the very soul of girlish joy. The dark-brown spot on her eye shone out with a coquettish light never seen in it until now, and the warble in her voice was like the music of a happy bird. Her high spirits were infectious—her lighthearted gaiety communicated itself to everybody. The men who might not dance with her were smiling at the mere sight of the sunshine in her face, and it was even whispered about that the President of the College of Surgeons, who opened the ball, had said that her proper place was not there—a girl like that young Irish nurse would do honour to a higher assembly.
In that enchanted world of music and light and bright and happy faces Glory lost all sense of time; but two hours had passed when Polly Love, whose eyes had turned again and again to the door, tugged at her sleeve and whispered: “They've come at last! There they are—there—directly opposite to us. Keep your next dance, dear. They'll come across presently.”
Glory looked where Polly had directed, and, seeing again the face she had seen in the window of the Foreign Office, something remote and elusive once more stirred in her memory. But it was gone in a moment, and she was back in that world of wonders, when a voice which she knew and yet did not know, like a voice that called to her as she was awakening out of a sleep, said:
“Glory, don't you remember me? Have you forgotten me, Glory?”
It was her friend of the catechism class—her companion of the adventure in the boat. Their hands met in a long hand-clasp with the gallop of feeling that is too swift for thought.
“Ah, I thought you would recognise me! How delightful!” said Drake.
“And you knew me again?” said Glory.
“Instantly—at first sight almost.”
“Really! It's strange, though. Such a long, long time—ten years at least! I must have changed since then.”
“You have,” said Drake; “you've changed very much.”
“Indeed now! Am I really so much changed for all? I've grown older, of course.”
“Oh, terribly older,” said Drake.
“How wrong of me! But you have changed a good deal, too. You were only a boy in jackets then.”
“And you were only a girl in short frocks.”
They both laughed, and then Drake said, “I'm so glad we've changed together!”
“Are you?” said Glory.
“Why, yes,” said Drake; “for if you had changed and I hadn't——”
“But what nonsense we're talking!” said Glory; and they both laughed again.
Then they told each other what had happened in that infinite cycle of time which had spun round since they parted. Glory had not much to narrate; her life had been empty. She had been in the Isle of Man all along, had come to London only recently, and was now a probationer-nurse at Martha's Vineyard. Drake had gone to Harrow and thence to Oxford, and, being a man of artistic leanings, had wished to take up music, but his father had seen no career in it; so he had submitted—he had entered the subterranean catacombs of public life, and was secretary to one of the Ministers. All this he talked of lightly, as became a young man of the world to whom great things were of small account.
“Glory,” said Polly, at her elbow, “the waltz is going to begin.”
The band was preluding. Drake claimed the dance, and Glory was astonished to find that she had it free (she had kept it expressly).
When the waltz was over he gave her his arm and led her into the circular corridor to talk and to cool. His manners were perfect, and his voice, so soft and yet so manly, increased the charm. In passing out of the hot dancing room she threw her handkerchief over her head, and, with the hand that was at liberty, held its ends under her chin. She wished him to look at her and see what change this had made; so she said, quite innocently:
“And now let me look at you again, sir!”
He recognised the dark-brown spot on her eye, and he could feel her arm through her thin print dress.
“You've told me a good deal,” he said, “but you haven't said a syllable about the most important thing of all.”
“And pray what is that?” said she.
“How many times have you fallen in love since I saw you last?”
“Good gracious, what a question!” said Glory.
His audacity was delightful. There was something so gracious and yet so masterful about him.
“Do you remember the day you carried me off—eloped with me, you know?” said Drake.
“I? How charming of me! But when was that, I wonder?” said Glory.
“Never mind; say, do you remember?”
“Well, if I do? What a pair of little geese we must have been in those days!”
“I'm not so sure of that—now,'” said he.
“You didn't seem very keen about methen, as far as I can remember,” said she.
“Didn't I?” said he. “What a silly young fool I must have been!”
They laughed again. She could not keep her arm still, and he could almost feel its dimpled elbow.
“And doyouremember the gentleman who rescued us?” she said.
“You mean the tall, dark young man who kept hugging and kissing you in the yacht?”
“Did he?”
“Do you forget that kind of thing, then?”
“It was very sweet of him. But he's in the Church now, and the chaplain of our hospital.”
“What a funny little romantic world it is, to be sure!”
“Yes; it's like poetry, isn't it?” she answered.
Lord Robert came up to introduce Drake to Polly (who was not looking her sweetest), and he claimed Glory for the next dance.
“So you knew my friend Drake before?” said Lord Robert.
“I knew him when he was a boy,” said Glory.
And then he began to sing his friend's praises—how he had taken a brilliant degree at Oxford, and was now private secretary to the Home Secretary, and would go into public life before long; how he could paint and act, and might have made a reputation as a musician; how he went into the best houses, and was a first-rate official; how, in short, he had the promised land before him, and was just on the eve of entering it.
“Then I suppose you know he is rich—enormously rich?” said Lord Robert.
“Is he?” said Glory, and something great and grand seemed to shimmer a long way off.
“Enormously,” said Sir Robert; “and yet a man of the most democratic opinions.”
“Really?” said Glory.
“Yes,” said Lord Robert; “and all the way down in the hansom he has been trying to show me how impossible it is for him to marry a lady.”
“Now why did you tell me that I wonder?” said Glory, and Lord Robert began to fidget with his eye-glass.
Drake returned with Polly. He proposed that they should take the air in the quadrangle, and they went off for that purpose, the girls arm-in-arm some paces ahead.
“There's a dash of Satan himself in that red-headed girl,” said Lord Robert. “She understands a man before he understands himself.”
“She's as natural as Nature,” said Drake. “And what lips—what a mouth!”
“Irish, isn't she? Oh, Manx! What's Manx, I wonder?”
The night was very warm and close, and there was hardly more air in the courtyard. The sound of the band came to them there, and Glory, who had danced with nearly everybody within, must needs dance by herself without, because the music was more sweet and subdued out there, and dancing in the darkness was like a dream.
“Come and sit down on the seat, Glory,” said Polly fretfully; “you are getting on my nerves, dear.”
“Glory,” said Drake, “how do the Londoners strike you?”
“Much like other mortals,” said Glory; “no better, no worse—only funnier.”
The men laughed at that description, and Glory proceeded to give imitations of London manners—the high handshake, the “Ha-ha” of the mumps, the mouthing of the canon, and the mincing of Mr. Golightly.
Drake bellowed with delight; Lord Robert drawled out a long owlish laugh; Polly Love said spitefully, “You might give us your friend, the new curate, next, dearest,” and then Glory went down like a shot.
“Really,” began Drake, “it's not hospital nursing, you know——”
But there were low murmurings of thunder and some large splashes of rain, and they returned to the ballroom. The doctors and the matrons were gone by this time; only the nurses and the students remained, and the fun was becoming furious. One young student was pulling down a girl's hair, and another was waltzing with his partner carried bodily in his arms. Somebody lowered the lights, and they danced in a shadow-land; somebody began to sing, and they all sang in chorus; then somebody began to fling about paper bags full of tiny white wafers, and the bags burst in the air like shells, and their contents fell like stars from a falling rocket, and everybody was covered as with flakes of snow.
Meantime the storm had broken, and above the clash and clang of the instruments of the band and the rhythmic shuffle of the feet of the dancers and the clear, joyous notes of their happy singing, there was the roar of the thunder that rolled over London, and the rattle of the rain on the glass dome overhead.
Glory was in ecstasies; it was like a mist on Peel Bay at night with the moon shining through it and the waves dancing to a northwest breeze. It was like a black and stormy sea outside Contrary, with the gale coming down from the mountains. And yet it was a world of wonder and enchantment and beauty, and bright and happy faces.
It was morning when the ball broke up, and then the rain had abated, though the thunder was still rumbling. The men were to see the girls back to the hospital, and Glory and Drake sat in a hansom-cab together.
“So you always forget that kind of thing, do you?” he said.
“What kind of thing?” she asked.
“Never mind;youknow!”
She had put up the hood of her outdoor cape, but he could still see the gleam of her golden hair.
“Give me that rose,” he said; “the white one that you put in your hair.”
“It's nothing,” she answered.
“Then give it to me. I'll keep it forever and ever.”
She put up her hand to her head.
“Ah! how sweet of you! And what a lovely little hand! But no; let me take it for myself.”
He reached one arm around her shoulder, put his hand under her chin, tipped up her face, and kissed her on the lips.
“Darling!” he whispered.
Then in a moment she awoke from her world of wonder and enchantment, and the intoxication of the evening left her. She did not speak; her head dropped; she felt her cheeks burn red, and she hid her face in her hands. There was a momentary sense of dishonour, almost of outrage. Drake treated her lightly, and she was herself to blame.
“Forgive me, Glory!” he was saying, in a voice tremulous and intense. “It shall never happen again—never—so help me God!”
The day was dawning, and the last raindrops were splashing on the wet and empty pavement. The great city lay asleep, and the distant thunder was rolling away from it.
The chaplain of Martha's Vineyard had not been to the hospital ball. Before it came off he had thought of it a good deal, and as often as he remembered that he had protested to Glory against the company of Polly Love he felt hot and ashamed. Polly was shallow and frivolous, and had a little crab-apple of a heart, but he knew no harm of her. It was hardly manly to make a dead set at the little thing because she was foolish and fond of dress, and because she knew a man who displeased him.
Then she was Glory's only companion, and to protest against Glory going in her company was to protest against Glory going at all. That seemed a selfish thing to do. Why should he deny her the delights of the ball? He could not go to it himself—he would not if he could; but girls liked such things—they loved to dance, and to be looked at and admired, and have men about them paying court and talking nonsense.
There was a sting in that thought, too; but he struggled to be magnanimous. He was above all mean and unmanly feelings—he would withdraw his objection.
He did not withdraw it. Some evil spirit whispered in his heart that Glory was drifting away from him. This was the time to see for certain whether she had passed out of the range of his influence. If she respected his authority she would not go. If she went, he had lost his hold of her, and their old relations were at an end.
On the night of the ball he walked over to the hospital and asked for her. She had gone, and it seemed as if the earth itself had given way beneath his feet.
He could not help feeling bitterly about Polly Love, and that caused him to remember a patient to whom her selfish little heart had shown no kindness. It was her brother. He was some nine or ten years older, and very different in character. His face was pale and thin—almost ascetic—and he had the fiery and watery eyes of the devotee. He had broken a blood-vessel and was threatened with consumption, but his case was not considered dangerous. When Polly was about, his eyes would follow her round the ward with something of the humble entreaty of a dog. It was clear that he loved his sister, and was constantly thinking of her. But she hardly ever looked in his direction, and when she spoke to him it was in a cold or fretful voice.
John Storm had observed this. It had brought him close to the young man, and the starved and silent heart had opened out to him. He was a lay-brother in an Anglican Brotherhood that was settled in Bishopsgate Street. His monastic name was Brother Paul. He had asked to be sent to that hospital because his sister was a nurse there. She was his only remaining relative. One other sister he had once had, but she was gone—she was dead—she died—— But that was a sad and terrible story; he did not like to talk of it.
To this broken and bankrupt creature John Storm found his footsteps turning on that night when his own heart lay waste. But on entering the ward he saw that Brother Paul had a visitor already. He was an elderly man in a strange habit—a black cassock which buttoned close at the neck and fell nearly to his feet, and was girded about the waist by a black rope that had three great knots at its suspended ends. And the habit was not more different from the habit of the world than the face of the wearer was unlike the worldly face. It was a face full of spirituality, a face that seemed to invest everything it looked upon with a holy peace—a beautiful face, without guile or craft or passion, yet not without the signs of internal strife at the temples and under the eyes; but the battles with self had all been fought and won.
As John Storm stepped up, the old man rose from his chair by the patient's bed.
“This is the Father Superior, sir,” said Brother Paul.
“I've just been hearing of you,” said the Father in a gentle voice. “You have been good to my poor brother.”
John Storm answered with some commonplace—it had been a pleasure, a happiness; the brother would soon leave them; they would all miss him—perhaps himself especially.
The Father resumed his chair and listened with an earnest smile. “I understand you, dear friend,” he said. “It is so much more blessed to give than to receive! Ah, if the poor blind world only knew! How it fights for its pleasures that perish, and its pride of life that passes away! Yet to succour a weaker brother, or protect a fallen woman, or feed a little child will bring a greater joy than to conquer all the kingdoms of the earth.”
John Storm sat down on the end of the bed. Something had gone out to him in a moment, and he was held as by a spell. The Father talked of the love of the world—how strange it was, how difficult to understand, how tragic, how pitiful! The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye—how mean, how delusive, how treacherous! To think of the people of that mighty city day by day and night by night making themselves miserable in order that they might make themselves merry; to think of the children of men scouring the globe for its paltry possessions, that could not add one inch to the stature of the soul, while all the time the empire of peace and joy and happiness lay here at hand, here within ourselves, here in the little narrow compass of the human heart! To give, not to get, that was the great blessedness, and to give of yourself, of your heart's love, was the greatest blessedness of all.
John Storm was stirred. “The Church, sir,” he said, “the Church itself has to learn that lesson.”
And then he spoke of the hopes with which he had come up to London, and how they were being broken down and destroyed; of his dreams of the Church and its mission, and how they were dying or dead already.
“What liars we are, sir! How we colour things to justify ourselves! Look at our sacraments—are they a lie, or are they a sacrilege? Look at our charities—are we Pharisees or are we hypocrites? And our clergy, sir—our fashionable clergy! Surely some tremendous upheaval will shake to its foundations the Church wherein such things are possible—a Church that is more worldly than the world! And then the woman-life of the Church, see how it is thrown away. That sweetest and tenderest and holiest power, how it goes to waste under the eye and with the sanction of the Church in the frivolities of fashion—in drawing-rooms, in gardens, in bazars, in theatres, in balls——”
He stopped. His last word had arrested him. Had he been thinking only of himself and of Glory? His head fell and he covered his face with his hand.
“You are right, my son,” said the Father quietly, “and yet you are wrong, too. The Church of God will not be shaken to its foundations because of the Pharisees who stand in its public places, or because of the publicans who haunt its purlieus. Though the axe be laid to the rotten tree, yet the little seed will save its kind alive.”
Then with an earnest smile and in a gentle voice he spoke of their little brotherhood in Bishopsgate Street; how ten years ago they had founded it for detachment from earthly cares and earthly aims, and for hiddenness with God; how they had established it in the midst of the world's, busiest highway, in the heart of the world's greatest market, to show that they despised gold and silver and all that the blind and cheated world most prizes, just as St. Philip and St. Ignatius had established the severest of modern rules in a profane and self-indulgent century, to show that they could stamp out every suggestion of the flesh as a spark from the fires of hell.
And then he lifted his cord and pointed to the knots at the end of it, and told what they were—symbols of the three bonds by which he was bound—the three vows he had taken: the vow of poverty, because Christ chose it for himself and his friends; the vow of obedience, because he had said, “He that heareth you heareth Me”; and the vow of chastity, because it was our duty to guard the gates of the senses, and to keep our eyes and ears and tongue from all inordinateness.
“But the lawful love of home and kindred,” said John; “what of that?”
“We convert it into what is spiritual,” said the Father. “All human love must be based on the love of God if it is to be firm and true and enduring, and the reason of so much failure of love in natural friendship is that the love of the creature is not built upon the love of the Creator.”
“But the love—say of mother and son—of brother and sister?”
“Ah, we have placed ourselves above the ordinary conditions of life that none may claim our affections in the same way as Christ. Man has to contend with two sets of enemies—those from within and those from without; and no temptations are more subtle than those which come in the name of our holiest affections. But the sword of the spirit must keep the tempter away. There is the Judas in all of us, and he will betray us with a kiss if he can.”
John Storm's breast was heaving. He could scarcely conceal his agitation; but the Father had risen to go.
“It is eight o'clock, and I must be back to Compline,” he said. And then he laughed and added: “We never ride in cabs; but I must needs walk across the park to-night, for I have given away all my money.”
At that the smile of an angel came into his old face, and lie said, with a sweet simplicity:
“I love the park. Every morning the children play there, and then it is the holy Catholic Church to me, and I like to walk in it and to lay my hands on the heads of the little ones, and to ask a blessing for them, and to empty my-self. This morning as I was coming here I met a little boy carrying a bundle. 'And what isyourname, my little man?' I said, and he told me what it was. 'And how old are you?' I asked. 'Twelve years,' he answered. 'And what have you got in your bundle?' 'Father's dinner, sir,' he said. 'And what is your father, my son?' 'A carpenter,' said the boy. And I thought if I had been living in Palestine nineteen hundred years ago I might have met another little Boy carrying the dinner of his father, who was also a carpenter, in a little bundle which Mary had made up for him. So I felt in my pocket, and all I had was my fare home again, and I gave it to the little man as a thank-offering to God that he had suffered me to meet a sweet boy of twelve whose father was a carpenter.”
John Storm's eyes were dim with tears.
“Good-bye, Brother Paul, and God send you back to us soon!—Good-bye to you, dear friend; and when the world deals harshly with you come to us for a few days in Retreat, that in the silence of your soul you may forget its vanities and vexations and fix your thoughts above.”
John Storm could not resist the impulse—he dropped to his knees at the Father's feet.
“Bless me also, Father, as you blessed the carpenter's boy.”
The Father raised two fingers of his right hand and said:
“God bless you, my son, and be with you and strengthen you, and when he smiles on you may the frown of man affect you not!—Father in heaven, look down on this fiery soul and succour him! Help him to cast off every anchor that holds him to the world, and make him as a voice crying in the wilderness, 'Come out of her, my people, saith our God.'”
When John rose from his knees the saintly face was gone, and all the air seemed to be filled with a heavenly calm.
While he had been kneeling for the Father's blessing he had been aware of a step on the floor behind him. It was his fellow-curate, the Reverend Golightly, who was still waiting to deliver his message.
The canon had been disappointed in one of his preachers for Sunday, and being himself engaged to preside over the annual dinner of a dramatic benevolent fund to be held on the Saturday night, and therefore incapable of extra preparation, he desired that Mr. Storm should take the sermon on Sunday morning.
John promised to do so; and then his fellow-curate smiled, bowed, coughed, and left him. A small room was kept for the chaplain on the ground floor of the hospital, and he went down to it and wrote a letter.
It was to the parson at Peel.
“No doubt you hear from Glory frequently, and know all about her progress as a probationer. She seems to be very well, and certainly I have never seen her look so bright and so cheerful. At the moment of writing she is out at a ball given by some of the hospital authorities. Well, it is a perfectly harmless source of pleasure, and with all my heart I hope she is enjoying herself. No doubt some form of amusement is necessary to a young girl in the height of her youth and health and beauty, and he would be only a poor sapless man who could not take delight in the thought that a good girl was happy. Her fellow-nurses, too, are noble and devoted women, doing true woman's work, and if there are some black sheep among them, that is no more than might be expected of the purest profession in the world.
“As for myself, I have tried to carry out-my undertaking to look after Glory, but I can not say how long I may be able to continue the task. Do not be surprised if I am compelled to give it up. You know I am dissatisfied with my present surroundings, and I am only waiting for the ruling and direction of the pillar of cloud and fire. God alone can tell how it will move, but God will guide me. I don't go out more than I can help, and when I do go I get humiliated and feel foolish. The life of London has been a great and painful surprise. I had supposed that I knew all about it, but I have really known nothing until now. Its cruelty, its deceit, and its treachery are terrible. London is the Judas that is forever betraying with a kiss the young, the hopeful, the innocent. However, it helps one to know one's self, and that is better than lying wrapped in cotton wool. Give my kindest greetings to everybody at Glenfaba—my love to my father, too, if there are any means of conveying it.”
The letter took him long to write, and when it was written he went out into the hall to post it. There he saw that a thunderstorm was coming, and he concluded to remain until it had passed over. He stepped into the library and selected a book, and returned to his room to read it. The book was St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood, and the subject was congenial, but he could not keep his mind on the printed page: He thought of the Father Superior, of the little brotherhood in Bishopsgate, and then of Glory at the hospital ball, and again of Glory, and yet again and again of Glory. Do what he would, he could not help but think of her.
The storm pealed over his head, and when he returned to the hall two hours later it was still far from spent. He stood at the open door and watched it. Forks of lightning lit up the park, and floods of black rain made the vacant pavements like the surface of the sea. A tinkling cab slid past at intervals, with its driver sheeted in oilskins, and now and then there was an omnibus, full within and empty without. Only one other living thing was to be seen anywhere. An Italian organ-man had stationed himself in front of a mansion to the left and was playing vigorously.
John Storm walked through the hospital. It was now late, and the house was quiet. The house-doctor had made the last of his rounds and turned into his chambers across the courtyard, and the night-nurses were boiling little kettles in their rooms between the wards. The surgical wards were darkened, and the patients were asleep already. In the medical wards there were screens about certain of the beds, and weary moans came from behind them.
It was after midnight when John Storm came round to the hall again, and then the rain had ceased, but the thunder was still rumbling. He might have gone home at length, but he did not go; he realized that he was waiting for Glory. Other nurses returned from the ball, and bowed to him and passed into the house. He stepped into the porter's lodge, and sat down and watched the lightning. It began to be terrible to him, because it seemed to be symbolical. What doom or what disaster did this storm typify and predict? Never could he forget the night on which it befell. It was the night of the Nurses' Ball.
He thought he must have slept, for he shook himself and thought: “What nonsense! Surely the soul leaves the body while we are asleep, and only the animal remains!”
It was now almost daylight, and two hansom-cabs had stopped before the portico, and several persons who were coming up the steps were chattering away like wakened linnets. One voice was saying:
“Mr. Drake proposes that we should all go to the theatre, and if we can get a late pass I should like it above everything.” It was Glory, and a fretful voice answered her:
“Very well, ifyousay so. It's all the same tome.” It was Polly; and then a man's voice said:
“What night shall it be, then, Robert?”
And a second man's voice answered, with a drawl, “Better let the girls choose for themselves, don't you know.”
John Storm felt his hands and feet grow cold, and he stepped out into the porch. Glory saw him coming and made a faint cry of recognition.
“Ah, here is Mr. Storm! Mr. Storm, you should know Mr. Drake. He was in the Isle of Man, you remember——”
“I donotremember,” said John Storm.
“But you saved his life, and you ought to know him——”
“I donotknow him,” said John Storm.
She was beginning to say, “Let me introduce——” But she stopped and stood silent for a moment, while the strange light came into her gleaming eyes of something no word could express, and then she burst into noisy laughter.
A superintendent Sister going through the hall at the moment drew up and said, “Nurse, I am surprised at you! Go to your rooms this instant!” and the girls whispered their adieus and went off giggling.
“What a glorious night it has been!” said Glory, going upstairs.
“I'm glad you think so,” said Polly. “To tell you the truth, I found it dreadfully tiresome.”
The two men lit their cigarettes and got back into one of the hansoms and drove away.
“What a bear that man is!” said Lord Robert.
“Rude enough, certainly,” said Drake; “but I liked his face for all that; and if the Fates put it into his head to stand between me and death—well, I'm not going to forget it.”
“Give him a wide berth, dear boy. The fellow is an actor—an affected fop. I met him at Mrs. Macrae's on Thursday. He is a religious actor and a poseur. He'll do something one of these days, take my word for it.”
And meanwhile John Storm had buttoned his long coat up to his throat and was striding home through the echoing streets, with both hands clinched and his teeth set hard.
“Martha's.
“Oh, Lord-a-massy! Oh, Gough bless me sowl! Oh, my beloved grandfather! John Storm has done for himself at last! That man was never an author of peace and a lover of concord; but, my gracious, if you had heard his sermon in church on Sunday morning! Being a holy and humble woman of heart myself, I altered the Litany the smallest taste possible, and muttered away from beginning to end, 'O Lord, close thou our lips'; but the Lord didn't heed me in the least, with the result that everybody on earth is now screaming and snarling at our poor Mr. Storm exactly as if he had been picking the pockets of the universe.
“It was all about the morality of men. The text was as innocent as a baby: 'Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.' And when he began in the usual way, the dear old goodies in glasses thought he had been wound up like the musical box and had just turned on the crank, so they cuddled in comfortably for forty winks before the anthem. There were two natures in man, and man's body might be good or bad according as spiritual or carnal affections swayed it, and all the rest of the good old change-for-sixpence-and-a-ha'penny-out, you know. But the lesson had been from Isaiah, where the unreasonable old prophet is indignant with the ladies of Zion because they don't want to look like dowdies, you remember: 'Tremble, ye women that are at ease, strip you and make you bare and gird sackcloth upon your loins.' And off he went like a comet, with the fashionable woman for his tail. If matrimony nowadays didn't always mean monogamy, who was chiefly to blame? Men were generally as pure as women required that they should be; and if the lives of men were bad it was often because women did not demand that they should be good. Tremble, ye women, that are at ease, and say why you allow your daughters to marry men who in fact and effect are married already. Strip you, and be ashamed for the poor women who were the first wives of your daughters' husbands, and for the children whom such men abandon and forget! In leading your innocent daughters to courts and receptions you are only leading them to the auction-room; and in dressing and decorating them you are preparing them for the market of base men. Last week some titled philanthropist had hauled up a woman in the East End of London for attempting to sell her daughter. How shocking! everybody said. What a disgrace to the nineteenth century! But the wretched creature had only been doing the best according to her light for the welfare of her miserable child; while here—with their eyes open, with their cultured consciences—the wives of these same philanthropists were doing the same thing every day—the very same!
“Having gone for the mammies like this, he went for the dear girls themselves one better. Let them gird sackcloth on their loins and hide their faces. Why did they suffer themselves to be sold? The woman who married a man for the sake of his title or his position or any worldly advantage whatever was no better than an outcast of the streets. Her act was the same, and in all reason and justice her name should be the same also.
“Hey, nonny, nonny! I told you how he broke down before; but on Sunday morning, in spite of mine own amended Litany, I had just as much hope of the breakdown of the Falls of Niagara, or a nineteen-feet spring tide. You would have said his face was afire, and those great eyes of his were lit up like the red lamps on Peel pier.
“Pulpit oratory! I don't know what it is, only I never heard the like of it in all my born days. I begin to think the real difference between preachers is the difference of the fire beneath the crust. In some it burns so low that it doesn't even warm the surface, and you couldn't get up enough puff to boil the kitchen kettle; but in others—look out! It's a volcano, and the lava is coming down with a rush.
“Mercy me, how I cried! 'Oh, my daughter, oh, my child, what a ninny you are!' I told myself; but it was no use talking. His voice was as hoarse as a raven's, and sometimes you would have thought his very heart was breaking.
“But the congregation! You should have seen the transformation scene! They had come in bowing and smiling and whispering softly until the church was a perfect sheet of sunshine, an absolute aurora borealis; but they went out like a northeast gale, with mutterings of thunder and one man overboard.
“And John Storm having put his foot in it, of course Glory Quayle had to get her toe in too. Coming down the aisle some of the dear ladies of Zion, who looked as if they wanted to 'swear in their wrath,' were mumbling all the lamentations of Jeremiah. Who was he, indeed, to talk to people like that? Nobody had ever heard of him except his mother. And in the porch they came upon a fat old dump in a velvet dollman who declared it was perfectly scandalous, and she had come out in the middle. Whereupon Glory, not being delivered that day from all evil and mischief, said, 'Quite right, ma'am, and you were not the only one who had to leave the church in the middle of that sermon.' 'Why, who else had to go?' said this female Pharisee. 'The devil, ma'am!' said Glory, and then left her with that bone to gnaw.
“It turns out that the old girlie in the dollman is a mighty patron of this hospital, so everybody says I am in for nasty weather. But hoot! My heart's in the Hielan's, my heart is not here; my heart's in the Hielan's, sae what can I fear!
“John Storm is in for it too, and they say his vicar waited for him in the vestry, but he looked like forked lightning coming out of the pulpit, so the good man thought it better to keep his rod in pickle awhile. It seems that the Lords of the Council and all the nobility were there, and it is a point of religious etiquette in London that in the hangman's house nobody speaks of the rope; but our poor John gave them the gibbet as well. It was a fearful thing to do, but nobody will make me believe he had not got his reasons. He hasn't been here since, but I am certain he has his eye on some fine folks, and, whoever they are, I'll bet 'my bottom dollar' they deserved all they got.
“But heigho! I haven't left myself breath to tell you about the ball. I was there! You remember I was lamenting that I hadn't got the necessary finery. In fact, I had put in a bit at the end of my prayers about it. 'O God, be good to me this once and let me look nice.' And hewas. He put it into the heads of the nabobs of this vineyard that nurses should 'appear at the Nurses' Ball in regulation uniform only.' So my cloak and my bonnet and my gray dress and my apron covered a multitude of sins.
“You should have seen Glory that night, grandfather. She was a redder young lobster than ever somehow, but she put a white rose in her carroty curls, and, Gough bless me, what a bogh [* Dear] she was, though! Of course, she made the acquaintance of the 'higher ranks of society,' and danced with all the earth. The great surgeon of something opened the ball with the matron of Bartimaeus's, and she went round on his arm like a dolly in a dolly-tub; but he soon saw what a marvellous and miraculous being Glory was, and after I had waltzed so beautifully with the ancient personage I had the hearts of all the young men flying round at the hem of my white petticoat—it was a nice new one for the occasion.
“But the strangest thing was that somebody from the Isle of Man flopped down on me there just as if he had descended from the blue. It was that little English boy Drake, who used to come to the catechism class, only now he is one of the smartest and handsomest young men in London. When he came up and announced himself I am sure he expected me to expire on the spot or else go crazy, and of course I was trembling all over, but I behaved like a rational person and stood my ground. He looked at me as much as to say, 'Do you know you've grown to be a very fine young woman, and I admire you very much?' Whereupon I looked back as much as to reply, 'That's quite right, my dear young sir, and I should have a poor opinion of you if you didn't.' So, being of the same opinion on the only subject worth thinking about (that's me), I behaved charmingly to him, and even forgave him when he carried off my white rose at the end.
“Mr. Drake has a friend who is always with him. He is a willowy person who owns sixteen setters and three church livings, they say, and wears (on week days) a thunder-and-lightning suit of clothes—youknow, a pattern so large that one man can't carry the whole of it and somebody else goes about with the rest. His name is Lord Robert Ure, and I intend to call him Lord Bob, for, since he is such a frivolous person himself, I must make a point of being severe. I danced with him, of course, and he kept telling me what a wonderful future Mr. Drake had, and how the Promised Land was before him, and even hinting that it wouldn't be a bad thing to be Mrs. Joshua. Fancy Glory making a tremendous match with a leader of society! And if I hadn't gone to that hospital ball no doubt the history of the nineteenth century would have been different!
“They are going to take me next week to something far, far better than a ball, only I must not tell you anything about it yet, except that I keep awake all night sometimes to think of it. But thou sure and firmest earth, hear not my steps which way they walk!
“It's late, and I'm just going to cuddle in. Good-night! My kisses for the aunties, and my love to everybody! In fact, you can serve out my love in ladles this time—being cheap at present, and plenty more where this is coming from.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you what happened when we returned to the hospital! It was shockingly late, and the gentlemen had brought us back, but there was our John Storm with his sad and anxious face waiting up to see us safely home. He was angry with me, and I didn't mind that in the least; but when I saw that he liked me well enough to be rude to the gentlemen I fell a victim to the crafts and assaults of the devil, and couldn't help laughing out loud; and then Ward Sister Allworthy came along and lifted her lip and showed me her tusk.
“It was a wonderful night altogether, and I was never so happy in my life, but all the same I had a good cry to myself alone before going to bed. Too much water hadst thou, poor Ophelia! Talk about two natures in one; I've got two hundred and fifty, and they all want to do different things! Ah me! the 'ould Book' says that woman was taken out of the rib of a man, and I feel sometimes as if I want to get back to my old quarters. Glory.
“P.S.—I'll write you a full and particular account of the great event of next week after it is over. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, till thou applaud the deed. You see I don't want you to eat your meal in fear—or your porridge either. But I am burning with impatience for the night to come, and would like to run to it. Oh, if it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly! See? I am going in for a course of Shakespeare!”