CHAPTER II.
A telegraphic message, early in the day, had told Mrs Walcheren the time to expect them, and warned her to keep herself and the children out of the way, so that, when the travellers arrived in Kensington Gardens Square, they encountered no one but the servant who opened the door to them, and Frederick was conveyed to his apartments, without meeting another soul. Two rooms, adjoining one another, had been prepared for his reception, and, as he cast himself languidly upon a couch, he stretched out his hand to his cousin.
‘What you have done for me yesterday and to-day, Philip, I shall never forget, and can never repay. I thinkyou have saved my reason. God bless you for it!’
‘To hear you say that, my dear Frederick, is more than sufficient to repay me for any trouble I may have taken on your behalf. But now, will you not try to take a little refreshment and rest? Have a warm bath! It is ready for you in the next room.’
‘Yes! I should like to have a bath,’ said Frederick, with a distorted smile; ‘although that beast Procter did seem to imagine it was impossible that I should care to go into the water. Water is about the only luxury I could never dispense with. And I feel so dirty,’ with a heavy sigh.
‘All right, then, go at once,’ replied his cousin; ‘everything is prepared for you, and don’t be afraid of meeting anybody. You are as much alone on this floor as if you were in your own flat. No one will come near you unless you ring, and for to-night I shall wait on you myself.’
‘How good you are to me!’ said Frederick, as he went into the bathroom.
When he came out again, with the taint of death, as it were, washed off him, he found a tray awaiting him, with a basin of strong soup, and a decanter of sherry, and Philip insisted upon his taking some refreshment before he dressed himself anew. His portmanteau had been unstrapped, and a fresh suit of grey tweed laid out for him to put on, but, unfortunately, it was the one which he had worn on Saturday morning, and the sight of it made him break down weakly again, as people will after having sustained a prolonged nervous strain.
‘My darling! my darling!’ he sobbed, ‘how little I thought, when I left you on that fatal morning, that I should never see you again, except—except—’
‘Come, Frederick, take your soup and drink a glass of sherry. You needn’t be afraid of two or three glasses, for it is the oldest in my cellar, and you know I amrather a connoisseur in wine. Never mind dressing yourself again; there is no occasion. Your dressing-gown will be far more suitable, and then you can lie down comfortably on the sofa. You must be sadly in want of rest.’
‘Yes, I do feel rather tired,’ replied Frederick, as he drank several glasses of the generous wine, and lay down as his cousin directed him; ‘and I almost think that I could sleep a little. I suppose one does go on sleeping and eating as long as one lives, even if onehaslost everything one cared for in the world,’ he added, with a wintry smile.
‘Well, then I will leave you for a little while, and see my wife and children,’ said Philip, taking no notice of his remark. ‘Try and compose yourself. Rest will do you more good than anything else; and I will be with you again in an hour, sooner if you care to have me, and will ring your bell.’
‘No, no! go to Marion,’ said Frederick, in a drowsy voice. ‘I have been troubleenough to you already.’ And Philip, seeing that he was really inclined to rest, left him to himself.
Of course his wife had much to hear, and he to tell, of the unhappy scenes he had passed through, and an hour slipped away before he went up to his cousin’s room again. He opened the door softly and peeped in. Frederick was still lying on the couch in an attitude of extreme exhaustion. He was breathing heavily, and catching his breath in his sleep, sobbingly, as children do; whilst, ever and anon, a half-muttered word, showed how grief pursued him, even in his dreams. Philip watched him for a few moments and then withdrew, and left him to his slumbers. Heavy, as he knew the awakening must be, Frederick needed strength above all other things, in order to bear what lay before him. Physically he had never been a very strong man, and his dissipated life had further tended to undermine his constitution, so that his cousin had feared for the effect of so violent agrief upon his health. When he descended to his family again he found the party augmented by the arrival of Father Tasker, who had come to hear what news Marion had received from Dover. Philip welcomed him warmly.
‘You have come in the very nick of time,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I felt your good angel would direct your footsteps hither. Frederick is far more resigned than I hoped to see him, but then, he is so exhausted at the present moment that one can hardly judge. I left him asleep on the sofa in his room. It is the first time he has closed his eyes since this terrible calamity overtook him—’
‘Say, rather, my son, since this great blessing was vouchsafed him, for I fully believe that this visitation, dreadful as it appears at first sight, is simply the voice of God calling to His unhappy child to repent and be saved.’
‘I believe you are right, father,’ said Philip. ‘For his sorrow has already made a great change in Frederick. He sworebefore me, on his dead wife’s wedding-ring, to pledge himself to virtue and fidelity for the rest of his life. I am sure he regards her death as a species of punishment for his former sins.’
‘May he continue to do so,’ replied the priest. ‘But such feelings are but too often evanescent. If we are to take advantage of this softening on his part, Philip, it must be while his memory is still fresh—his feelings yet lacerated. We must strike whilst the iron is hot, or with time and forgetfulness his heart may harden, as did the heart of Pharaoh, and this salutary lesson be lost.’
‘I do not think his sorrow for her loss will soon pass, father. I never remember to have seen Frederick so prostrated with grief before. I believe this poor girl must have been, as he says, the one love of his life.’
‘To the exclusion of the Church and his religious duties, my son. Yes, perhaps so, but those are the very loves that the Lord is jealous of—that He will notpermit, and so cuts off, in order that we may find our joy in Him alone.’
‘Stay to dinner with us, father,’ said Philip eagerly. ‘Poor Frederick may be glad to see you, later on, and you can direct his thoughts to these great truths. Marion, my dear, the father will stay with us, I know. Let the servants know that he will do so.’
Philip peeped once more into his cousin’s apartments before he descended to the dining-room, only to find him still sleeping, though brokenly, and it was not until dinner was concluded, that he ventured upstairs again. But then his worst fears were realised. Frederick had woke up with strength renewed by his temporary relief, to the full horror of his bereaved position. His cousin found him prostrated on the couch in an agony of suffering, during which he was calling upon the Almighty to put an end to his existence, or to give him back that of which He had so cruelly robbed him.
‘Frederick! this is blasphemy!’ cried Philip in a tone of horror, ‘God’s will is not to be altered by man’s ravings. Your wife is in His keeping. Has that thought no power to calm your transports? Would you have her back again, even if you could, in this world of pain and disappointment?’
‘Yes, I would, I would!’ returned the young man, ‘a thousand times over. Do you suppose that my darling can enjoy even heaven without me, whom she loved so tenderly? No, no! She is weeping for me, as I weep for her. You told me yourself that you did not believe that she was happy. Oh, my love—my love, would God I might have died for you, or with you.’
‘Frederick, Father Tasker is below. Would you like him to come up and speak to you? He can make the reason of such things clearer to you than I can.’
‘Father Tasker!’ exclaimed Frederick, ‘No. He will only talk to me of submission and obedience to God’s will, and make me more miserable. Ican’tsubmit; it’s no use telling me to do so, and I can’t seeGod’s love in the matter, either. I can only see hard-heartedness and cruelty, and utter indifference to my trouble. I have only one wish left—to die too, and join my darling, wherever she may be!’
‘If you were sure of joining her, certainly that would be the easiest plan out of it all. But, Frederick, Father Tasker will tell you the best way—the only way—by which you can hope to join your wife when your time comes. Believe me, he has no intention or desire to wound you by any allusion to your trouble, unless you desire it. He has come to see you only as a friend who deeply sympathises with your pain.’
‘Let him come up, then,’ replied Frederick in a muffled voice, and in another minute the priest entered the room, whilst Philip discreetly remained downstairs. Father Tasker went up to the couch where the stricken man still lay, and kindly laid his hand on his.
‘God bless you, my son, and comfort you,’ he said.
‘How can God comfort me?’ demanded Frederick. ‘He will not give me my lost wife back again.’
‘Not in this world; but is this world all we live for? At the best we are here but for a few short years, whilst the next will last for all eternity. Had you the choice of fifty years spent with your late wife, Frederick, or fifty thousand, which would you prefer?’
‘How can you ask me, when you know she was the life of my life! Father, you have heard so much of my loose style of living, that you may think my love for her was like the rest, but it was no more to be compared to them than light to darkness. I loved her—I loved her—all the other feelings I have ever experienced for women look like horrible nightmare dreams, or flimsy shadows, beside the strong, deep passion she evoked in me. I should have become a better man for her sake. Perhaps even religious, like Philip,—who knows? The possession of her—the knowledge of her love for me—mademe feel so grateful, that I might have ended by loving God in very gratitude for what He had given me in her. And now—now, it is all over.’
‘It is not all over, my son. It has but just begun.’
Frederick raised his swollen features to gaze with astonishment in the priest’s face.
‘I mean what I say! Love cannot die! Your wife is gone from your mortal gaze, but she still exists and her love exists with her. And now is the time for you to show the world if you did love her or not. I am not questioning your passion for her earthly body. I understand she was very beautiful, and such things take a great hold on men’s fancies. But her body is no longer here for you to lavish your affection upon. What are you going to do for her soul?’
‘Were I a good man, I would pray for it; but who would hear the prayers of such a sinner as I am? Besides, my darling was infinitely purer and betterthan myself! She can have no need of my prayers.’
‘That is to say, then, that she was not mortal, for all mortals have need of each other’s help. Besides, if she had no need of your prayers, have you none of your own?’
‘Ah! father, you touch me on the raw there. I have felt, even since I comprehended what the awful news they brought me meant, as if it were a judgment upon me for my sins—as if the Lord had taken my innocent darling in His exceeding wrath at my past wickedness.’
‘In His love, not His wrath,’ interposed the priest gently; but Frederick did not heed him.
‘Ever since I lost her,’ he went on, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, ‘I have done nothing but think of Rhoda Berry, and that girl down at Southampton, and other certain black marks on my unhappy life. But is God so hard as that? Can He have stricken down my angel by so cruel a death, just as she was happy withme, because I have made a beast of myself? Why her, and not me? I was the sinner. I should have been the sufferer.’
‘And you are suffering greatly, my son; but it is a suffering which may result in exceeding joy. Why did the Almighty not take you, instead of your wife—the girl whom you led to fly in the face of her parents and to err greatly on that account. I think I can tell you. He was too gracious to cut you off in the midst of your sins, without giving you a chance of reparation, and, by taking her instead, he has left you behind to pray for the salvation of her soul. Frederick, that poor child is even now holding out her pale hands to you, through the gates of purgatory, and saying, “Husband! it was you who led me astray; it is to you I look to release me from these purgatorial fires. Show your great love for me, by dedicating the rest of your life to this pious purpose, so that, when I have risen, I may join my prayers to yours, and requite your goodness by praying for you.” This poor girl was not of our faith; she wasa heretic, so much the more does it behove all those who loved her to entreat the Blessed Mother of God to use her interest with her Son in order to gain her salvation. If you love her, Frederick, as you say you do, now is the time to prove it. Come back to the Church you have deserted, and spend your future life so as you may meet your wife again, when your time comes to leave this world.’
‘You mean,’ said Frederick, ‘that I shall give up my fortune to the Church, as my godfather intended I should do. Well, if you will use it in masses for the repose of my poor darling’s soul, you may have it. It is worth nothing to me now. My life, to all intents and purposes, is over.’
‘I do not mean only that,’ replied the priest; ‘I do not think that the Church would accept your money without yourself. But you must not forget, Frederick, what was your sainted mother’s wish and aim. She designed you, her favourite son, for the service of the Church—she educated you for that purpose, but, as soon as youwere left without her counsel and guidance, you abandoned your studies and elected to go your own way. But the Church has never given you up. She considers you still as her child and disciple, and is ready at any time to welcome you back into her ranks. A very few more months of study would fit you to pass the necessary examination for ordination as a priest. Is it no inducement to you to know that, in that capacity, you might offer the Mass, every time you celebrated it, for the repose of your wife’s soul—that you would live, as it were, in the presence of God, pleading for her, and for your eternal re-union? If you really desire her everlasting salvation—if you long to meet her again, and in a state of bliss—if you regret your past life and desire to lead a purer one in the future, you will take it up where you dropped it at your mother’s death, and fit yourself for eternity.’
‘Idowish all that you say,’ cried Frederick, whose body was sorely weakened, and whose mental calibre had neverbeen too strong (for his love of vicious courses in the past, proved the weakness of his moral character). ‘I care nothing more for money, or the pleasures that money bring, and I have but one desire—to be assured of my darling’s happiness, and that we shall meet again hereafter. Oh! father, if these things are to be gained by my entering the Church, let me do so as quickly as I may, for if you do not find me occupation and distraction, I shall go mad.’
‘The Holy Church will take care of you, my son,’ said Father Tasker, as he rose to leave the room. ‘She will envelop you with her arms like a loving mother, and soothe all your sorrows and your fears to rest upon her holy breast. And the Blessed Mother of God, who is weeping tear for tear with you every moment, will rejoice so exceedingly to regain her lost child, that she will do her utmost to reward you by the salvation of your wife, whom she will accept as her child too, because of her great love for you. You could not have chosen a truer means to ensure the happinessof both. You will live, my son, to call this sad time the most blessed of all your life.’
‘But, meantime, I must live withouther!’ cried Frederick, relapsing into a storm of grief.
‘Not without her,’ replied the priest, ‘but with her, in spirit, every hour. This is where our blessed faith comforts us exceedingly over those of less favoured people. Theytalkof the Communion of Saints, butactas though the dead, once removed from our sight, had no more part nor lot with mortal flesh. But we know that this doctrine is erroneous, else what would become of our many instances of saints and angels appearing to men after their demise? The dead, so-called, are not beyond the reach of our prayers and our tears. They hear us and see us and pray for us. And it is our blessed privilege to ask their prayers, as in the case of your sainted mother (who has, doubtless, wearied the throne of God with her entreaties on your behalf—now aboutto be so mercifully and almost miraculously answered); or to give them ours, as in the case of your young wife, who will, in after years, rise up and call you blessed for what you have done for her, as you have cause to call your dear mother.’
‘I am hers and the Church’s for evermore,’ exclaimed Frederick, in a fervour of exaltation, as he stretched forth his hands and clasped those of the father; ‘only tell me what to do and I will do it!’
‘Take a day or two to think over the idea, my son, and then, if you are still of the same mind, I will speak to my old friend, Canon Bulfil, on the subject, and see if he cannot receive you into his college, until you are ready to pass for Holy Orders. I am persuaded that a few months’ study is all you will require to regain what you may have lost.’
‘And then—and then,’ exclaimed Frederick, with raised eyes and clasped hands, ‘I shall offer the blessed Mass for the repose of her soul every day, five and sixtimes a day, if they will let me do so. I shall tell them that they cannot give me too much work. If it kills me, so much the better. It will send me all the sooner to her.’
He remained in this mingled state of despair and hope for many days to come, and it was whilst in this condition that Philip Walcheren and the priest took advantage of him, and persuaded him to give himself and his fortune to the Church. Not that they entertained the slightest idea of fraud or chicanery in doing so. On the contrary, they honestly rejoiced in their success, believing that they were securing the salvation of his soul, and the commendation of their superiors in the faith. They were both good men in their way, and earnest to promote the cause of the Catholic Church and their religion.
We judge our fellow creatures too hardly in this world, on the supposition that what is good for Tom and Dick, must, necessarily, be good for Harry. A Protestant can see nothing but idolatry inthe worship paid by a Catholic to the image of his patron, but he is quite blind to the fact that, when he exclaims with horror if one stands on a ginger-bread covered bible in order to increase one’s stature, he practises the same idolatry in another form. The Catholic regards the Protestant as a heretic, because he does not bow his head at the elevation of the Mass; but when the Catholic Church forbids her children to kneel in prayer with their Protestant brethren, she is as openly contemptuous of their faith as she believes them to be of hers. Such extremes are folly, and go far to make one disbelieve in the uses of religion at all, except as a plea for fighting. Intolerance has caused more people to forsake the ordinances of their childhood than anything else, and those who set the faction going and the flame alight, will have much to answer for, if the day of judgment, which they foretell, ever comes to pass.
Both Catholics and Protestants may do many things which appear intolerant tooutsiders, and yet act in the most perfect faith and desire to serve God. This was how Philip Walcheren and Father Tasker acted with regard to Frederick. They wanted to help him save his soul—they thought they saw a way of doing it—and they brought all their arguments to bear upon that way.
And Frederick was as tinder in their hands. His whole mind was absorbed with the idea that his sins had, in a measure, brought this awful calamity upon him, and that the loss of Jenny was due to himself alone. He loathed the thought of his past life with its licentiousness and folly. He wanted to put it right out of his head—to forget it had ever been—to lose sight of anything that should remind him of it. The idea of a cloister and hard study, strange to say, held no horror, at that moment, for this man of the world, who had lived his life on race-courses, and behind the scenes of theatres. All he longed for was oblivion, and he hoped to find itin the exercise of religion. Have we not all felt so at times, when the hopes of earth were shattered at our feet, and we could turn nowhere in the world for comfort? It is then, and especially when death has removed what we loved best from our sight, that we feel as if we mustmakethe heaven for ourselves, in which we only half believe.
That is well enough. It is the cry of the human heart for the love of God, without which it cannot exist. If it could be followed by a realisation of the presence of God, the soul would be satisfied and all life changed. The burdens of earth would roll off our shoulders as Christian’s bundle rolled off his back in thePilgrim’s Progress, and, instead of despairing mortals, reviling our fate and the Almighty’s ordinances, we should be contented, grateful children, waiting patiently till our Father saw fit to call us home!
But the mistake is, to suppose that religious ceremonies, designed of men,will heal our wounds, unless God’s balm has dropped upon them first. Church-going is all very well for those who like it, but it should never be made a superstition, as so many people make it, since it was only instituted to do honour to God (which mission it too often sadly fails in), and God is everywhere ready to be done honour to.
Yet we are too apt to fly to it in our sorrow, and believe, as Frederick Walcheren believed, that, by making a great sacrifice of all his pleasures, and making a great sweep of all his sins at one and the same time, he would be pleasing God and securing his own happiness.